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ITie Wagtaik. — If you can afford me a small space in the "E(;trospect," for next montli, I 

 will endeavour to reply as concisely as possible to Mr. Round's answer to my remarks on his 

 paper on the "Wagtails. I never said or implied that the Pied Wagtail was not the Motacilla 

 alba of the authors to whom he refers me, nor can I allow him to include Linna)us in the 

 list, as I believe he refers to the Continental Wagtail; but I contended the M. Yarrellii of 

 the present day was the old M. albi, and that the term alba had been applied by modern 

 ornithologists to the Continental Wagtail, with I believe ample grounds for the change. My 

 observations on the plumage of the Pied Wagtail lead me to a conclusion in direct opposition 

 to Mr. R. I have examined hundreds of specimens since I last wrote, and have not been able 

 to see a black-chinned one amongst them ; I am confident if Mr. R. were to obtain any number 

 of specimens in their winter plumage, he would find a proper proportion of them give, on 

 dissection, internal evidence of their being males. I am equally confident that the summer 

 plumage is the same in both sexes, and that the male is only to be, and may easily be, dis- 

 tinguished from the female by his much deeper black markings. On referring, as requested 

 by Mr. R., to page 128, vol. ii. of Mr. Morris's beautiful work, I find he says "It sometimes 

 aspires to a pleasant modulation which may almost be dignified with the name of a song;" no 

 very strong authority against my opinion; but let Mr. R. refer to the same work, page 103, 

 vol. ii., he will find much stronger evidence against his opinion of the song of the Swallow. 

 Mr. R. says he has obtained specimens of both the M. alba and M. neglecta, but being "no 

 naturalist," never "dreamed" that the former was anything more that a fine Pied Wagtail, 

 and the latter the young of the Gray Wagtail, whose existence he appears to doubt in his original 

 paper, and in which only two other species are named, or the female of the Yellow Wagtail; 

 surely, if he had been wide awake he would not have placed such opinions in opposition to 

 those' of Mr. Tarrell, Mr. Gould, and a host of others who are naturalists, and whose opinions 

 are always looked on as sufficiently conclusive for any observations they make on Natural 

 History. I must now decline any further discussion on this subject, as I think the pages of 

 "The Naturalist" may be better filled than by a controversy by two persons who are not 

 naturalists; and I see no hope of convincing, in fact it would be presumption in me to hope 

 to do so when the highest authorities fail. — Stephex Clogg, Looe, January 11th., 1854. 



Can your correspondent, J. Longmuir, Esq., Jun., be really serious when he asserts that the 

 Starling, ( Sturnus vulgaris,) for the purpose of breeding, sometimes "chooses high trees, in 

 which it excavates a deep hole?" (see "The Naturalist," vol. iii., page 220.) If he be really 

 serious, and if his statement be correct, the Starlings, which breed in the neighbourhood of 

 Aberdeen, must surely differ very widely in their structure and organization from those which are 

 to be met with elsewhere; they must, one would imagine, be furnished with the stiff, whalebone - 

 like shafts to the feathers of the tail, which characterize the Woodpeckers, to enable them to 

 poise themselves against the trunk of the tree, in order to commence operations; their feet 

 and claws must also necessarily undergo considerable modification; they must moreover be 

 furnished with the powerful, wedge-shaped beak of the Woodpecker, to enable them successfully 

 to accomplish what they have begun. Would Mr. Longmuir be obliging enough to procure a 

 specimen of the Aberdeen Starling, and favour the readers of "The Naturalist" with a description 

 of the beak, feet, tail, etc. ? we should then see in what essential particulars they differ from 

 the common sort. That Starlings do breed in holes in high trees, and low trees, and trees of 

 intei^nediate height, is well known, but it is in holes previously excavated by the Woodpecker 

 tribe, not in holes excavated by themselves. They may possess strength of beak sufficient to 

 enable them to remove particles of soft, decayed wood, so that when this kind of wood presents 

 itself in the hole chosen by them, they may perchance enlarge that hole, if it should not have 

 been found sufficiently large for their accommodation previously; but for the general purposes 

 of "boring" or "excavating," the beak of this species is by no means adapted or powerful 

 enough. We can give full credence to the fact that Starlings breed in the holes of trees in 

 the neighbourhood of Aberdeen, but I imagine Mr. Longmuir must have taken it for granted 

 that they excavated the holes themselves. Now it would be well in ornithological, as in many 

 other matters, not to take anything for granted; we should thus avoid the danger we must 

 otherwise be constantly in of mis-stating facts. — S. Stone, Brighthampton, October 6th., 1853. 



