io8 SKETCHES OF BIRD LIFE. 



specimen of a given species ; but to accord t< 

 these varieties the rank of species, and to give 

 them new names, is a practice for which, we venture 

 to think, future inquirers will not be grateful. 



As to the so-called Parus britannicus we fully 

 endorse the opinion of Professor Newton, as ex- 

 pressed in the first volume of his edition of Yarrell's 

 British Birds. At page 492 he observes: " In 

 the editor's eyes the difference does not amount to 

 a specific distinction as it does in those of his 

 industrious friends, for he finds that examples of 

 this bird, killed during the breeding season in one 

 of the oldest Scottish pine forests, though more 

 resembling English than foreign specimens, are yet 

 intermediate between them, a fact which seems 

 to show that specific differentiation has not been 

 entirely established. He is therefore compelled 

 to refuse recognition to the Parus britannicus, 

 described by Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser (Ann. and 

 Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 4, viii. p. 437), and since 

 figured in their beautiful work (parts xi. and xii.), 

 while congratulating them on their acumen in 

 having indicated what one school of naturalists 

 would certainly call an * incipient species ;' and in 



