1918.] Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 741 



retained by Layard. Can it be in the South African 

 Museum ? 



Yours truly, 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, OuTRAM Bangs. 



Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 

 19 June, 1918. 



Crested Larks of the Nile Valley. 



Sir, — In ' Novitates Zoologicse,' vol. xxiv. pp. 439-441 

 (December 1917), Dr. Hartert has again reviewed the races 

 of Galerida from the Nile Valley. 



May I, as a student of Egyptian Crested Larks for over 

 eleven years, make some remarks on Dr. Hartert^s paper ? 

 The name altirostris was given by Brehm (Vogelfang, p. 124, 

 1855) to the Upper Egyptian form, and he clearly states the 

 locality as " Oberagypten selten nordlich " (we now know 

 that it is found on the poorer soil to the extreme north of 

 Egypt, though Brehm did not know this). Any attempt 

 to transfer this name to any other form is therefore mis- 

 leading and against all laws of priority. Because the 

 scientific name altirostris has been crossed out on the label 

 of the type and again " underpunctuated,'^ meaning that it 

 must stand after all, probably doue by Brehm himself, in . 

 no way alters the fact that altirostris is the name of the 

 " Upper Egyptian " form. Also Brehm's type of maculata, 

 named three years later than altirostris ! (which I have 

 examined and compared with a large series of my own) 

 is not distinguishable from " Upper Egyptian " birds, as 

 can be clearly seen when a large series is examined. 

 Brehm's Kom Ombo altirostris is rather ochreous in colour, 

 but I have exactly matched it with a specimen in the Giza 

 Museum from Giza, and with one from near Damietta. 

 I also have a bird from Luxor which matches Brehm's type 

 of maculata. 



This being so, we have only the two forms : G. c. mmritica 

 NicoU & Bonhote from the Fayum, and G. c. nubica Bianchi 

 from Dongola, to discuss, as G. c. nigricans, the dark Delta 



