154' Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



us below, p. 155), tlic Curlew-Sandpiper {Triiiga subarquata) 

 is omitted in the list, though mentioned in the text (see p. 209) . 

 The volume is well printed, well illustrated, and well mapped, 

 and does great credit to all who are concerned in it. 



XII. — Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 

 We have received the following letters, addressed " to the 

 Editors " :— 



SiKS, — I am much surprised to learn from Mr. Ogilvie 

 Grant's ' Game-birds of the British Museum,' p. 65, and 

 Game-birds, in 'Allen's Naturalist's Library,' p. 52, tbat 

 the Ural Capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus uralensis, was first 

 described by Mr. Nazarov. The facts are that, when working 

 with the late Mr. Severtzow, I found some differences be- 

 tween the Capercaillies from Central and Eastern Russia, 

 and in my manuscript-catalogue of the birds of Russia I 

 named the eastern form Tetrao urugallus, var. uralensis. This 

 name was employed by Mr. Nazarov, my pupil in ornithology, 

 to whom, when he was making the list of Kirgez birds 

 (' Recherches zoologiques' &c.), I communicated both my 

 own list of Russian birds and Severtzow's list of the birds of 

 the valley of the river Ural^ with this bird designated as 

 follows : — 



"Tetrao urogallus, var. uralensis, Sev. ^' Menzb." 



A little later, after a careful comparison of Central-Russian 

 Capercaillies with specimens from Eastern Russia, received by 

 me through the kindness of Mr. Lorenz, I deduced a conclusion 

 that the eastern Capercaillie was a good subspecies, and I 

 expressed my idea on this subject in ' The Ibis ' (1887, p. 303), 

 where for the first time a diagnosis of the bird was published, 

 though many skins were sent abroad previously by Mr. Lorenz 

 under the name " Tetrao urogallus, var. uralensis, Menzb." 



Hoping that you will be good enough to re-establish the 

 truth by publishing this letter, 



Yours &c., 



University, Moscow, M. MeNZBIER. 



October 18th, 1895. 



