Letters, Extracts, Notices, h^c. 495 



captured a good bird dawned upon me. While staying in 

 Hampshire lately I showed it to my friend Mr, C, Bygrave 

 Wharton. He, failing to recognize it, proposed sending it to 

 Prof. Newton, whom I now much thank for kindly identifying 

 it as Siurus noveboracensis, a well-known North-American 

 Warbler. 



Yours &c., 



Hugh R. Rabbetts. 



Extract from a Letter from Dr. Burmeister to Mr. Sclater^ 

 dated Buenos Aires, 25 June, 1888. — " In possession of the 

 copy of the first volume of ^Argentine Ornithology/ I send 

 you ray best thanks, and wish to make a remark on the species 

 of Furnarius which, following Doring and Cabanis, you call 

 F, tricolor (Arg. Orn. i. p. 170). This name was applied by 

 Doring to a bird which he believed to be identical with a 

 species of the same genns [Furnarius) noticed in my ' Reise ' 

 (vol. i. p. 159), as observed at Rio Quinto, but not obtained. 

 Some years later, when in Buenos Aires, I received a collection 

 of skins from Bolivia, and found therein a specimen of the 

 same bird wliich I had seen living in Rio Quinto. This species 

 I named F. tricolor, and sent a specimen to Giebel at Halle, 

 who described the new species in his ' Zeitschr. f. d. gesammte 

 Naturw.^ (xxxi. p. 17) under the name I had given to it. 

 Doring believing my bird to be the same as the species of 

 Furnarius obtained by him at Cordova, sent specimens of it 

 under that name to Cabanis. But the two species are entirely 

 different, and I propose to call the species discovered by Doring 

 Furnarius cristatus, on account of its crested head.'^ 



Assumption of Male Plumuye by Female Birds. — Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney writes : — ^'In this year's ' Ibis ' (p. 227) a Domestic 

 Hen of my father's is mentioned which assumed the Cock's 

 plumage and afterwards lost it again. She has laid a great 

 many eggs this summer, but his poultryraan tells me they 

 are useless, as he set tw^o clutches with no result, and after- 

 wards tried mixing them with no better success ; he describes 

 them as being very yellow compared with those of an ordinary 

 Fowl. 



SER. v. — VOL. VI, 2 M 



