Letters, Announcements, S^-c. 463 



Xorthropps, .'! September, l^!74. 

 Sir, — I regret to find that I appended aMrong name to an 

 Egret sent by Mr. Ayres from Trans Vaal, in ' The Ibis * for 

 the present year, p. 104, and No. 201. in Mr. Ayres's list. 



The species there referred to under the liead of Herodias 

 garzetta shouhl have been inserted as H. intermedia, Wagl. 



I am yours, &c., 



J. H. GURNEY. 



33 Carlyle Square, London, S.\\\ 

 18th September,, 1874, 



Sir, — In my paper '' On Birds from Hakodadi/' published 

 in ^The Ibis' for April 1874, under "35. Eastern Bullfinch, 

 Pyrrhula orient alis,'^! note that I received from Mr. Blakiston 

 " a male and female without date."" On reexamining these 

 specimens lately, I observed that the male was typical both in 

 size and colour, whereas the female was large and has a wash 

 of white along the web on each side of the stem of each outer 

 tail-feather. From this last character I argued that I had 

 from Hakodadi a female P. cassini, Baird. 



From the Kurile Islands I have a pair of P. orientalis, 

 sent me by Von Schrenck. The male is typically coloured ; 

 the female has an indistinct white patch on the underside of 

 the outer reetrix. Of another pair from Hakodadi, collected 

 by Mr. H. Whitely, both have more or less white on the part 

 indicated, and the male has a rosy blush over the grey under- 

 parts. At this juncture, Mr. Taczanowski, of Warsaw, sent 

 me a male of the larger size, marked P. coccinea, from Ussuri. 

 This has a distinct white tail-patch. To compare with this, 

 Mr. Dresser kindly lent me a male P. coccinea frora Moscow. 

 The latter had the red mixed with yellow, as in our common 

 Bullfinch, and no signs of the white on the tail. I asked to 

 borrow a female. He sent one received from Greece ; and on 

 the tail of this occurred a white patch, though small. This 

 certainly shakes my confidence in P. cassini ; and until Ave 

 get adult males from Hakodadi, it will be impossible to say 

 for certain whether my present specimen is P. cassini or a 

 phase of P. coccinea, which we have evidence to show extends 



