40 Canon Tristram on the 



decidedly the contrary, but of which the first primary is 

 unfortunately developed one eighth of an inch beyond that 

 of other species retained among the Saxicolinse? I have 

 measured the first primary of S. arnotti and compared it with 

 that of half a dozen other Saxicolinae, and I find the line^ the 

 fatal linCj is drawn at one and a quarter inch. Beyond that 

 limit Saxicola passeth not. 



I next turn to my Redstarts, and find no place for a most 

 interesting old friend, Ruticilla moussieri. It is omitted from 

 the Ruticillinse because its tail is short. Its nest and eggs, if 

 not its habits, are certainly Ruticilline, rather than Pratinco- 

 line. I turn to the genus Pratincola, which finds itself in 

 unwonted corapanj^, in the centre of the Muscicapinee ; but 

 there is no place there for my North-African friend. He is 

 left out in the cold by all. 



More fortunate is Irena. Having formerly been attached 

 to the Dicruridse, this genus, properly, no doubt, removed by 

 Mr. Sharpe from that connexion, is now taken altogether 

 from the neighbourhood of the Orioles, with which certainly 

 it has some affinity, and appears in the Timeliine Miscellany. 



I happened to be admiring the other day a specimen of 

 that most beautiful aiid anomalous bird, Vrncynchramus 

 pylzowi, with the beak, head, and upper plumage of Emberiza, 

 and the tail and lower plumage of Uragus. But having a 

 rounded wing, it was admitted neither into the society of 

 Bunting nor Rose-Finch, but lay in a Timeliine drawer ! I 

 shall be told that no system is perfect, and that it is very 

 easy to criticise ; and I grant it ; but what I wish to do is to 

 record my humble protest against the siezing of one special 

 character, not always homologous to the rest of the struc- 

 ture, whether it be palatal bones, the wing-formula, the 

 sternum., the tail-feathers, or aught else, and the building 

 of a system of classification upon it to the exclusion of 

 many countervailing and modifying circumstances on either 

 side. 



I have been led to these remarks by endeavouring to find 

 a place for the little group of Pacific Warblers generally 

 known as Tatare ; and in proposing to absorb them into the 



