NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 97 



is very seldom completed, and before all the winter (white) feathers 

 have been shed, some of the ash3'-gray autumn plumage arc gene- 

 rally observable. Still, a % , killed, say in May, always has a 

 considerable number of purely black feathers on his breast. At 

 this time the ? is of a bright orange color, vermiculated above 

 with black, and hardly to be distinguished from L. rupestris of 

 the same sex and season. Later in the year both sexes put on au 

 ashy-gray plumage (for Lagojius has three moults a year), and 

 in this you have the " plumage des noces" of most of the conti- 

 nental dealers. I myself have never seen Pyrcnrean specimens, 

 but it is said that they are specifically identical with those of the 

 Alps, and these last are certainly not distinguishable from our 

 own or Scandinavian examples. I am told that there is appreci- 

 able difference observable in the size of Scotch specimens accord- 

 ing as they ai*e from the summits of the hills or lower down, and 

 I know there is such difference in Norwegian ones. The laro;est 

 L. mutus I ever saw were from Qvalo, the island on which Hammer- 

 fest stands, and owing to its proximity to the sea, I suppose, and 

 the influence of the gulf stream (the well-known " Horri-eye" bean 

 is constantly thrown up there), the climate of Qvalo is certainly 

 much more equable and milder than that of the frontier range of 

 mountains between Norway and Sweden, and still more so than such 

 hills as those about Kilpisjeroi, whence have come the smallest 

 specimens I ever handled. I should think two Qvalo birds would 

 weigh as much as three from Kjolen, and the difference of size is 

 plainl}^ visible even in the sternum. But of course no one would 

 wish to separate these birds unless it was Brehm. The fourth 

 European species I hold to be the same as your L. rupestris, which 

 L. mutus certainly is not. Under the name of L. hemileucurus (or, 

 Malmgren would say, L. hyperhoreus), the Spitzbergen bird has 

 been described as distinct, but I have hardly a doubt* remaining 

 that it is in every respect identical with the Islandic L. islando- 

 rum, which again I hold to be specifically* identical with L. rein- 

 hardti of Greenland, and L. rupestris of Labrador, and the 



' P. S. 6 May, 1871. Dr. Von Heuglin having kindly sent me some ex- 

 amples of the Spitzbergen bird obtained by him last year, an examination 

 of them has entirely changed my opinion on this point. I now beheve L. 

 liemileucxirus to be a good species, and I have stated my reasons for so 

 thinking in notes which will shortly be published by that naturalist or by 

 Dr. Finsch. 

 1871.] 



