January 14.—One or two other little incidents on my recent travels may be worth recording Pro memoria....shall we say? As an amateur ornithologist I have always been puzzled by sea birds, and these are, of course, the very birds about which I get asked most questions... because people really have nothing to do but talk when they are travelling. Take the Gulls as an example: in the winter up North we have the Pink-logeed Herring Gull, Blacktailed Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, and Glaucous Gull, all easily recognized by their names if they would only play the game: instead of doing that, they refuse to take adult plumage for two or three years (not to mention making changes between winter and summer) so that if you see a flock of gulls at sea there appear to be about six different varieties... all spotty and quite unlike their names. Then there were the little diving ducks which came to Weihaiwei and'spent their time mostly under water looking for malluses; they were little black ducks whose name and description I have never seen in any list of local birds: it was only when I got near enough to them to see them clearly without field-glasses (most unpopular with Japanese sentries) I spotted the white wing-spectrum and found them to be Velvet Scoters—seen (by me) for the first time in the Far East. Then came the unfortunate incident of the beautiful bird seen on Taku Bar. There was a pretty young lady travelling with a rather severe Mama: she (the p.y.l. I mean) saw a very handsome bird rising from the sea and rushed over to me shouting, "Oh! What is that lovely bird?" Raising my glasses I promptly said, with some excitement, "Why, that's a Ruddy Sheldrake!" And a severe voice behind me said, "Mabel, come here at once." I call it very unfair to be blamed for telling the truth: if my friend Sowerby had been there he would have replied, "that's Casarca ferruginea"....and the lady would have continued to smile upon him,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.