THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 5 



One special line of work pursued by the Club was the 

 observation of rare bird visitors, with the result of a consider- 

 able addition to the British Hst. In his presidential address 

 at its sixth and last anniversary, November 29, 1829, Mr. 

 N. A. Vigors enumerated the following species as having been 

 added to the catalogue of British birds since the foundation 

 of the Club, and chiefly by the exertions of its members : 

 Tengmalm's owl, bluethroat, black redstart, Kichard's pipit, 

 Alpine accentor, ortolan, Lapland bunting, parrot crossbill, 

 buff-breasted sandpiper, Temminck's stint, Baillon's crake, 

 Bewick's swan, red- crested pochard, ruddy sheldrake, Arctic 

 tern, glaucous gull, ivory gull, and pomatorhine skua. Sabine's 

 snipe was, of course, included, as was the Gambian goose. 

 The latter may be neglected, since this species has been kept 

 in this country as ornamental waterfowl for more than two 

 centuries, and was well established in St. James's Park in 

 the time of Charles II. Naturalists, therefore, regard occasional 

 specimens that may be shot as escapes, not as genuine 

 stragglers from Africa. For many years Sabine's snipe was 

 ranked as a distinct species; then the view gained ground 

 that it was only a melanoid variety on precisely the same 

 level as the albino and fawn-coloured snipes occasionally met 

 with. But though this view is embodied in standard books, 

 doubts were expressed of its correctness by Mr. J. E. Harting 

 at a scientific meeting of the Zoological Society in 1871 ; and 

 Mr. Pycraft's paper in the Ibis for April, 1905, makes it 

 clear that further investigation is necessary. Some of these 

 so-called Sabine's snipes are undoubtedly melanoid varieties, 

 inasmuch as they differ from the common snipe only in the 

 intensity of their coloration. Mr. J. L. Bonhote drew the 

 attention of the author of the paper mentioned above to the 

 difference of the pattern of the plumage of some specimens, 

 which resembled that of the great or solitary snipe. But two 

 facts must not be lost sight of in considering this question : 

 species, now admitted to be bad, have been founded on 

 variations in plumage; and though Sabine's snipe is rarely 

 met with outside the British Islands, it has never been found 

 breeding. 



Beyond the papers in the Linnean Transactions already 



