Letters, Announcements, S^c. 469 



which I had received from the neighbourhood of Loughborough, 

 and which 1 had put aside to be named. 



On my return home I reexamined this example, and then 

 felt little doubt that it was a S. oquatica. To be sure, however, 

 that I was not mistaken, I sent it for confirmation to Mr. 

 Tristram, and that gentleman thereupon wrote to me as fol- 

 lows : — " There is no doubt about your Salicaria aquatica. It 

 is not in full plumage, and therefore may be a bird of the year. 

 The mature bird in breeding-plumage has not the spots on the 

 breast and flanks. There is no difference between the sexes.'' 



It only remains for me to add that my specimen was obtained 

 near Loughborough, in Leicestershire, during the summer of 

 1864, and was forwarded to me by a friend, under the impres- 

 sion that it was a Grasshopper-Warbler, When we consider that 

 S. aquatica is known to breed on the opposite shores of Holland, 

 and is found in the marshes about Lille and Dieppe, we are 

 only surprised that it is not a more frequent visitor to Great 

 Britain than it appears to be. On the other hand its general 

 resemblance in size and colour to other well-known species, 

 when seen at a little distance, would naturally cause it to be 

 overlooked. I am, &c., 



Kingsbury, Middlesex, August, 1867, J. Edmund Harting. 



Yatesbury Rectory, Calue, Sept. 3, 18G7. 



Sir, — In the last number of ' The Ibis' (p. 374) you did me 

 the honour of reviewing a paper which I read some time since 

 at Salisbury, before our County Natural History Society, 



I had no expectation or desire that my unpretending paper 

 should occupy so distinguished a position as to receive notice 

 from ' The Ibis ; ' but as it has been so honoured, I trust you 

 will allow me in self-defence to assert that, if your reviewer had 

 taken the trouble to read my paper before he criticised it, he would 

 have discovered that the theory I enunciated as held by Dr. 

 Baldamus was precisely the opposite to that which he attributes 

 to me. So far from saying that " Dr, Baldamus alleged that 

 the Cuckoo had any power of laying an egg of what colour she 

 pleased," I distinctly say (p. 12), after quoting from Dr. Bal- 

 damus this theory as upheld by some advocates, " but Dr. Bal- 



