352 ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS. 



the Swallow is very interesting and suggestive. Still more light may 

 be thrown upon the subject if we consider the distribution and mi- 

 gration of allied forms. Motacilla lugens is the species which breeds 

 over the greater part of the Kamtschatkan Peninsula. We also know 

 it to breed on the Kurils and on Yesso, Japan. Concerning its dis- 

 tribution in the latter country we quote the following from Captain 

 Blakiston (Amend. List B. Jap., p. 54) : "On the last [Yesso], however, 

 it appears to breed but sparingly, and has not been observed on the 

 main island, or anywhere in Southern Japan during that season. In 

 September and October it is numerous on migration in Tesso, but I believe 

 none winter there. To the southward, we have winter specimens from 

 Yokohama, Kob(5, Nagasaki." I think there is no danger in assuming 

 that the birds which "in September and October are numerous on 

 migration in Yesso " come from Kamtschatka. In now directing the 

 attention to the birds living at the Amur, I may repeat what I empha- 

 sized when speaking of the purple finch : " If only the Amur birds 

 had a single character of their own, no matter how slight, no matter 

 how keen and trained the eye of the expert must be to discover it, what 

 an advantage ! " Now, whether such a character exists I do not know, 

 since I have no Amur specimens, but I really suspect that it does. I 

 take my suspicion from v. Schrenck's description, which distinctly says, 

 that his Amur specimens differ both from Middendorft's examples and 

 from the Kamtschatkan ones, being in a measure intermediate between 

 them.* I think there are good reasons for the belief that the birds in 

 question will turn out to be entitled to a name, as Motacilla lugens amu- 

 rensis (Seebohm), the author of which, perhaps, after all did not "com- 

 mit so great a crime" in creating the last name as he himself fears. 

 But it must be left to future investigations to decide whether there ex- 

 ists such a " migration-route race," as friend Palm^u would call it. 



We shall now apply Palm6u's theory that the migration routes indi- 

 cate the ancient ways by which the species originally immigrated into 

 a country as a test to the cases of the Wagtail and the Swallow. We 

 are, then, probably justified in taking the present center of distribution of 

 Motacilla ocularis and Chelidon tytleri as the starting point from whence 



* " So sehen wir also die Amur-Exemplare der Var. lugens in ihrer Fiirbung in jeder 

 Bezielinng den Uebergang von den dunkelsten, am pragnantesten schwarz und vreiss 

 gezeichneteu Form des maritimen Ostasiens, wir meinen Kaintschatka's, der Kurilen 

 nnd Japan's, zu der viel helleren und mehr grauen Form des continentalen Ostasien's." 

 Sclirenck, Reise Amuii., I. p. 340. 



