Lctttrs, Extracts, Notices, &;c. 525 



til at Rittcr voii Tscbusi should have ventured to re-name the 

 British Dipper. 



I shoukl like to point out that Dr. Sharpe, in the ^Cata- 

 loj^ue of Birds,' vol. vi. p. 309 (1881), had already stated 

 " tliat to the exi)crienced eye tlie English specimens form an 

 easily recognisable race " ; and that at Tring we have long ago 

 appreciated the differences. If Dr. Sharpe were re-writing 

 the above-cited volume, I feel sure that he also would now 

 allow the British Dipper's right to a new name ; for, after 

 all, Ritter von Tsr^husi, by giving a subspecific name to this 

 bird, is only expressing in a different and more concise way 

 what Dr, Sharpe wrote twenty-one years ago. 



Yours &c.. 

 Zoological INIiiseum, Trir.g, Herts. Walter Rothschild. 



29tli April, 1902. 



Sirs, — 'You conclude one of your notices in your last 

 number (above, p. 351) with the words "What was the 

 Cahow 1'' I thought this question had been answered 

 half a century ago ! I have never heard a doubt about it 

 expressed by any ornithologist who knew anj^thing of the 

 Bermudas. I lived myself in the islands from 1846 to 1849. 

 In 1847 I wrote to the late Sir W. Jardine, stating that from 

 what the fishermen had told me of the Cahow (which was 

 well known to them) I believed that it would prove to be 

 one of the Petrels (Jard. Contr. to Ornith. 1849, p. 79). I 

 afterwards, in company with the late Sir J. Campbell Orde, 

 obtained specimens of the bird and some of its eggs near 

 the Cooper Islands. The late Col. H. M. Drummond-IIay 

 and Lt -Col. Wedderburn also procured specimens of it, as 

 did Mr. Hurdis. No doubt there are even now a few pairs 

 still lingering about the home of their ancestors, I observe 

 that Mr. Verrill has misquoted Mr. Hurdis, who says that 

 the Shearv>ater, Piiffitms obscurus (with which P. auduboni 

 is rightly ideutified by Mr. Salvin), is still known by the 

 fishermen as "the Cahow.'^ See also Jones, 'Naturalist 

 in Bermuda/ p. 94. In 1874 Capt. Reid, R.E., found a 



