191 



Short 1l-lotc6, auD Xcttcrs to the lEMtor* 



DR. GREENE AND THE NO-EGG SYSTEM. 



Sir, — Mr. S. Laing it is, I believe, who has laid it down that 

 *' what the greatest thinkers think to-day, the company of 

 thinkers will think to-morrow ; and what the company of 

 thinkers think to-morrow, the great army of non-thinkers will 

 accept as a fact the day after." 



Dr. Greene, as the pioneer of twenty years ago, has lived 

 to see his thinking thonght by the company of thinkers of 

 to-day— represented by the majority of the members of the 

 Foreign Bird Club. He has lived to see the crystalization of 

 his thinking firmly set by the aid of scientific knowledge and 

 methods not within his grasp at the time he did his original 

 thinking. 



An the time is coming when the great army of non- 

 thinkers will follow the natural laws, and will emancipate 

 themselves from the trammels of blind adherence to con- 

 ventionalities, thus accepting as facts what had previously been 

 set out and proved by the thinkers. In a few years time the 

 guerilla warfare of the " experts " against scientific truths will 

 have ceased ; their feeble tactics of misrepresentation in all its 

 numerous phases will have been forgotten ; and their places 

 will have been taken by a younger and fresher generation. 



Dr. Greene and many others of us have lived long enough 

 to see this happen in other places. It will happen with us. 



\V. Geo. Creswei,!.. 



THE FIREFINCHES. 



Sir,— Perhaps I may be permitted to add a few remarks to 

 Mr. Pycraft's notes on Firefinches, which accompanied Mr. 

 Goodchild's life-like plate of the Vinacious Firefinch in the 

 September number of "Bird Notes." 



From an avicultural point of view the genus Lagonostida, 

 as constituted in the British Museum Catalogue, can be 

 certainly divided into three groups with distinct affinities of 

 their own : 



1, To include L. niveiguttata (and any close allies it 

 may have), which from its general appearance and habits is, 

 I should think, more nearly related to the Aurora Finches 

 {Pytelia) than to its neighbours in the Catalogue. 



2. The typical Firefinches. L. senegala, rubricata, rufo- 



