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Show 1895.] LOED LILEOED ON A 1IYBE1D JDTJCK. 3 boschas) and the Teal (Querquedula crecca), that had been caught in a decoy in Northamptonshire, and read the following remarks :- " The skin sent up for exhibition was taken from a bird that dropped on to our decoy-pool near Tichmarsh, Norths., with a small bunch of Teal, at morning flight-time on December 21st, 1894, and was taken with six ol the last-named species and six Mallard soon after daylight. 1 very much regret that the decoy-man did not distinguish its difference from the other ' fowl' captured with it till after he had killed it. This specimen is without doubt in m y opinion a hybrid between Teal and Mallard, and equally certainly belongs to the race to which Pennant gave the name of ' Bimaculated Duck' (British Zoology, vol. ii. 8vo ed. 1776, p. C02, pi. C). Professor A. Newton, to whom I wrote for further information on the subject of this ' Bimaculated Duck,' has most kindly and promptly supplied me with the following details:-'In his 'Arctic Zoology' (1785) Pennant remarks (ii. p. 575), ' M y Bimaculated Duck (Br. Zool.) has been discovered by Doctor Pallas along the Lena aud about Lake Baikal, and a description sent by him to the Royal Academy at Stockholm under the title of Anas glocitans, or the Clucking Duck, from its singular note.' This erroneous identification was accepted, as you know, for a long while; Keyserling and Blasius, in 1840, seem to have been the first to perceive it (Wirbelth. Europ. p. lxxxv). They accordingly named Pennant's bird A. bimacidata, without expressing any suspicion of its being a hybrid, nor did such suspicion arise, so far as I know, until a good many years after,-for I think I remember Tarrell talking of it as an open question. However in 1856 he had become convinced of the bird being a hybrid, and omitted it from his 3rd edition published in that year, for by that time specimens of the true A. glocitans had been received in England.' " I find that iu m y first reference to Pennant I have omitted to state that after his description of the bird, loc. supra cit., he writes:- ' Taken in a decoy near in 1771 ; communicated to m e by Poore, Esq.' Professor Newton tells m e that the blanks are in the original, and at the end of his notes to m e adds :-' A. and H. Matthews, in their List of the Birds of Oxfordshire (Zool. p. 2539), say that they suppose the decoy at which the bird of 1771 was taken was that at Boarstall near Otmoor.' Tarrell, in the second edition of his ' British Birds,' 1845 (vol. iii. p. 260), supplies the Christian name of Pennant's correspondent as 'Edward,' and after an allusion to Pallas says that no further account has reached us of the specimen alluded to, nor has it been ascertained whether it was preserved. Tarrell goes on to say, loc. supra cit.:-' The specimens of both male and female, from which I have taken the description, were sent up from a decoy near Maldon, in Essex, to Leadenhall Market, in the winter of 1812-13. Here they were observed by a respectable naturalist, Mr. George Weighton, of Fountain Place, City-road, who immediately purchased them and set them up. From his collection they have subsequently passed into mine. There can be little doubt of the |
