714 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



Leriva nivicola (common locally, a most amusing and 



confiding bird). 



Yours &c., 



C. H. T. Whitehead. 



Sehore, Bhopal, India, 

 12t}i Auj?., 1909. 



Sirs, — At tlie meeting of the B. O. Club held on 26th 

 May, 1909, 1 exhibited an adult male specimen of Muscicapa 

 semitorquata as being new to the Egyptian avifauna. In the 

 report of that meeting (Bull. B. O. C. vol. xxiii. p. 93) I am 

 credited with having exhibited a specimen of M. collaris as 

 new to Egypt ! I need hardly point out that the Collared 

 Flycatcher {Muscicapa collaris) is a regular visitor to Egypt 

 during the spring migration {cf. Shelley's ' Birds of Egypt,' 

 p. 130). 



In his ' Manual of Palaearctic Birds ' (p. 256) Mr. Dresser 

 includes M. semitorquata as a subspecies of M. collaris. It 

 is really, however, in my opinion, a subspecies of M, atri- 

 capilla. In fact, adult males of M. semitorquata (or, as I 

 prefer to call it, M. atricapilla semitorquata) only diifer from 

 those of M. atricapilla atricapilla in having the sides of the 

 neck white (these white patches almost form a collar round 

 the hiud-neck), and in haviug a small white speculum on 

 the wing. The amount of white on the tail is the same in 

 both M. a. atricapilla and M. a. semitorquata — i. e., white on 

 the outer and inner webs of the first and second pairs, and 

 ■white on the outer web only of the third pair of rectrices, 

 whereas in M. collaris the white is restricted to the outer web 

 of the first pair. Young males of M. collaris have no white on 

 the tail at all, whereas in M. atricapilla young birds have the 

 outer web of the first three pairs of rectrices white. 



Yours &c., 

 Giza, Egypt, Michael J. Nicoll. 



1st August, 1909. 



Sirs, — Probably some of the readers of ' The Ibis ' are 

 aware that I have been engaged, from time to time as 



