349 Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithologg of Siberia. 
p- 177), are M. hodgsoni. Middendorff’s skins of M. lugens 
in the St.-Petersburg Museum are MW. ocularis. In the same 
museum there is, however, a fine series of skins of the true 
M. lugens from Kamtchatka. 
The synonymy of this bird, simple as it appears, is most 
bewildering. We have the authority of Mr. Hume (‘Stray 
Feathers,’ v. p. 434) for the assertion that, in the opinion of 
Professor Alfred Newton, “ nomenclature bears the same re- 
lation to real natural history that rat-hunting does to real 
sport.” Be this as it may, I do not know any one fonder of 
a “rat-hunt” of this kind than Professor Newton. In his 
article on the Pied Wagtail, in his new edition of Yarrell’s 
‘ British Birds,’ we have an excellent résumé of a day’s “ rat- 
hunting.” The first rat he starts is Motacilla lugubris, Pallas, 
and after running it through the fourth and third parts of 
Temminck’s ‘Manual of Ornithology,’ he finally loses the 
scent in the first part in 1820 (ed. 2, p. 253). The descrip- 
tion here given being that of a bird which, in Professor 
Newton’s opinion, is “ unquestionably identical” with the 
British Pied Wagtail, that bird becomes M. lugubris, Pallas, 
apud Temminck ; and since there is no evidence that Pallas 
ever gave the name of WM. lugubris to any Wagtail, our British 
bird becomes M. lugubris, Temminck. The next “rat” that 
Professor Newton starts is MZ. lugens, lig. This, he tells us 
in a footnote (loc. cit.), he chased as far back as 1850, where 
he suddenly lost the scent in the ‘ Fauna Japonica.’ I must 
confess that my attempts to run down this animal have been 
still less successful. I started it in Oustalet’s ‘ Oiseaux de la 
Chine’ (p. 3800), where I was at once tripped up»by two errors * 
(“ F. Jap. Aves, 25,” should read “ F. Jap. Aves, p. 60, pl. 25 7; 
and “ Swinh. (1860) 357,” should read “ Swinh. Ibis, 1860, 
p. 857”). I picked up the scent again in the P. Z. 8. 1870, 
p- 130, and stumbled on two more errors (“ P. Z. 8. 1863, 
p. 17,” ought to be “ P. Z. S. 1863, p. 275,” and “ Ibis, 1863, 
p- 85,” ought to be “Ibis, 1863, p. 309”). Recovering myself, 
J pursued the trail through Schrenck’s ‘ Amur-Lande,’ 1860, 
with only a slight mishap (the page in Pall. Zoogr. Rosso-, 
Asiat. i. intended to be referred to is 507, not 307), and I 
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