( 136 ) 



back ; middle of throat, lower abdomen, and sides of body spotted like the breast : 

 S. cari/ocatdctex (L.). 



a. Beak very stout ; white tips to rectrices small : njiper tail-coverts mostly 



nnspotted ; colour of npper parts iretierally very i)ale : X canjocatuctes 

 cari/omtactes (L.)- (Scandinavia, Bornhoim, Lnpj)land, Russian Baltic 

 jirovinees, ami eastern jjarts of East Prnssia.) 



b. Beak, tail, and upper tail-coverts as in a ; colour of upper parts generally 



deeper brown: N. cari/ocatactes relicta (Uchw.). (Central Enro|)ean 

 Mountains— Alps from west to east, Carpathians, Sudetic :\louiitains, 

 Harz Mountains, ? Pyrenees.) 



c. Beak slender and thin ; white tips to rectrices much larger ; upper tail-coverts 



mostly with fine white spots: X canjocatactes mar.rorloinchos (C. L. Brm.). 

 (Siberia, migrating into Europe— and perhaps parts of China ?) 

 «■/. Beak not so stout as in a and b, l)ut stouter than in c ; upper tail-coverts 

 and tail as in c ; white spots below generally a little larger : ,V. canjo- 

 catactes japonicus Hartert. (Northern Japan, Kurile Islands.) 



Besides tlie literature discussed at some length before, I wisli once more to call 

 special attention to Herr von Tschusi-Schmidhofifen's articles in Oniis, Vol. V. 

 pp. 130-148, Tab. II., and in Verh. zool.hot. Ges. Wien, 18S8, pp. 407-506, Tab. XI. 

 These (and Professor Blasius' article) have provided us with such e.xcellent notes 

 and such cart-ful measwements that I saw no need to repeat them here. Neither of 

 the two authors thought it advisable to separate the Alpine form from the North- 

 European one, and they are indeed hardly separable, though a good series sliows 

 in the mean the lighter colour of the former, and many of tlie Scandinavian birds 

 have also larger beaks, though not always. 



The Gknus CERTHIA. 



A much hunted ground, and yet not fully exhausted ! Since 0. L. Brehm 

 separated the German creepers into two species, one being C.faniiliaiis. the other 

 C. brack;/clact)/la (which he always considered as a species and not as a subspecies), 

 there has been, among Continental ornithologists, much controversy about tliese 

 forms. The great Naumann strongly opposed Brehiu"s oijiuion about the creepers, 

 and up to recent times the Continental ornithologists who recognised the two forms 

 were very much in the minority, but quite recently I myself (since 1887 in print), 

 Rudolf Blasius, Fliiricke, Kleinschmidt, Deichler, Prazak, and otliers have recog- 

 nised C. hra/:l>f/(/arti/!a, and thus in Germany the truth is rapidly gaining ground. 

 The truth is that tlie two are quite distinct, though the name '' bmch</dacti/la" is 

 misleading, the coloration being, in my opinion, the principal) character, and not the 

 hind-toe but the liind-claw differing in length. C./amiliaris, probably the same as 

 the Scandinavian bird, is almost universally found in North-East Germany. In East 

 Prussia I have frequently found the latter. In Hinterpommern E. von Homeyer 

 never found C. brach/dactyla, though he knew it from Vorpommern, where both 

 occur (Homeyer in (itt.). However C. bmchydactfjla ku» been foimd in Ea_st Prussia, 

 but it is there very rare indeed, and specimens are. I think, not quite so typical as 

 western ones, nor are western C. J'amiliaris quite so jironounced as eastern ones. 

 Near Wesel, on tlie Lower Rhine, I have shot many specimens, and they were all C. 

 hrachjdactyla, as well as all the specimens I ever saw from Holland, including several 

 skins kindly sent to the Tring Museum by Mr. Blaauw of 's Graveland. In most 



