Letters, Announcements, ^c. 371 



To speak generally, and not specially of Ring-Plovers, 

 Wheatears, or Rock-Pipits, I cannot see that any reason 

 exists for ignoi'ing or slurring over vrell-markecl races of birds, 

 ■whether one is a 'Mumper^' or '^splitter." Not one of the 

 three forms I have specified has been properly described by 

 Mr. Dresser. Surely any considerable homogeneous body of 

 individuals breeding together and flocking together (as a rule), 

 apart from their congeners, is worthy of S07ne recognition and 

 description if not of a Latin name ! and what matter if they 

 breed with the nearest forms, as Corvus corone with C. comix, 

 or vary towards them ? 



It may be asked. What is the real scientific value of 

 the information that Mr. Dresser, or somebody else, has 

 " united " two very different forms, because intermediate 

 varieties have been found, or because the winter plumages 

 are similar, &c. ? 



To this I reply that to say that one bird is a form of an- 

 other, which we have strictly defined to be different, is, I fancy, 

 illogical to begin with : but it is also unscientific ; for modern 

 zoology tends to show that one nearly allied form is as good 

 as another, both being equally descended from some primi- 

 tive type. Why, then, these often-attempted suppressions of 

 well-marked forms? 



Yours &c., 



Clifton. 



Cobham Hall, May 3. 



Sirs, — Having visited the north of Iceland last summer, I 

 am induced to send you a few notes on the birds I saw there. 



I observed a good many birds on the voyages out and home, 

 such as the Common, Herring-, Kittiwake, and Lesser Black- 

 backed Gulls, Common and Arctic Terns, Greater and Manx 

 Shearwaters, Stormy Petrels, Fulmars, Great, Pomatorhine 

 and Bufii'on's Skuas, Puffins, Arctic Puffins, Guillemots, Briin- 

 nicVs Guillemots, Black Guillemots, Cormorants, Gannets, 

 and Little Auks. In one instance I saw a Ringed Plover hotly 

 pursued b}"^ a Skua ; and we once had as many as eleven of 

 the little Buffon^s Skuas round the ship. Unfortunately I 



