•NATUME 



[May i; 1890 



J)rQ.dHCtion of new varieties or species is the isolation of a por- 

 ion of the race, appears very luminous. On this sabject, let 

 me again quote from Darwin : — 



^' Youatt gives an excellent illustration of the effects of a 

 icourse of selection, which may be considered as unconsciously 

 followed, in so far that the breeders could never have expected, 

 nor even have wished, to produce the result which ensued — 

 namely, the produc ion of two distinct strains. The two flocks 

 of Leicester sheep kept by Mr. Buckley and Mr. Burgess, as 

 jMr. Youatt remarks, 'have been purely bred from the original 

 stock of Mr. Bakewell for upwards of fifty years. There is not 

 a suspicion existing in the mind of anyone at all acquainted 

 with the subject that the owner of either of them has deviated 

 in-any one instance from the pure blood of Mr. feakewell's flock, 

 and yet the difference between the sheep possessed by these two 

 gentlemen is so great that they have the appearance of being 

 quite different varieties'" ("Origin of Species," 4ih edition, 

 pp. 37, 38}. Joseph JuHN Murphy. 



Belfast, April 24. . 



■ The 'fifth Caudal vertebra of a toTtoiseshell cat at the Sussex 

 County Hospital is dislocated and attached at right angles to the 

 long axis of the fourth . The sixth and last vertebra is also affixed 

 at right angles to the fifth. The cat is able to wag the terminal 

 phalanx <5f the tail, and the distortion has always been considered 

 ■to be due to an accident when the animal was a kitten. Within 

 the last week the cat has had a litter of several kittens, two 

 of which were born almost tailless, one possessing (as far as I 

 could ascertain by external manipulation) two caudal and th6 

 other three caudal vertebrjE only. Whether the original distor- 

 tion is due to accident or not, I think these facts may interest 

 some readers of Nature. W. Ainslie Mollis. 



Brighton^ April 28. 



P. S. — Since writing the above note I have had an opportunity 

 of examining the two remaining kittens of the litter, and I find 

 that only one of these has a normal tail. The other is docked 

 of one or two of the terminal vertebrae, and the tail has a slight 

 twist on itself towards the end. W. A. H. 



April 30. 



Variation in the Nesting-habits of Birds. 



In considering the interesting question of instinct, one 

 naturally turns to the nesting-habits of birds as affording an ap- 

 parently good instance of habit acquired and perpetuated so as 

 to become fixed, and, as we say, instinctive. It would be in- 

 teresting, however, to find exactly how far the art of nest- 

 building is really inherited, and how much uniformity exists 

 among the nests of birds of identical specific characters. 



The "blackbird" of this region, Scolecophagus cyanocephahis, 

 is rather noteworthy in this connection. Goss, in his " Birds of 

 Kansas," says this bird breeds in trees and bushes, from three to 

 thirty feet from the ground. In Colorado, as observed by Mr. 

 Morrison and myself, it breeds sometimes on the ground, and 

 sometimes in low trees or bushes. In Custer County, Colorado, 

 I find it breeding on the jjround, sometimes at the very edge of 

 creeks, in places where arboreal nests might have been made, 

 and also better concealed ones. Captain C. E. Bendire, who 

 inclines to the opinion that this bird breeds diversely in all. parts 

 of its range, where opportunities offer, writes {in litt.) : — " I have 

 found them nesting abundantly both on the ground and in bushes 

 in the same locality and close together in Oregon. One thing 

 struck me as peculiar : the nests when placed on the ground 

 were almost always to be found on the extreme edge of a creek 

 bank, when they could have selected far more suitable places, 

 better concealed ones at any rate, a few feet away from the 

 bank." This selection of creek banks, noticed both in Colorado 

 and in Oregon, is remarkable. It had occurred to me that in 

 Colorado the habit might have been formed to lessen the risk of 

 being trampled upon by the herds of buffalo which used to in- 

 habit this region, but Captain Bendire tells me the habit is 

 observed also in regions where there never were any buffalo, 

 which throws doubt upon my explanation. 



Captain Bendire, who has so excellent a knowledge of the 

 nesting-habits of American birds, kindly gives me a few notes on 

 the subject, which it may be permissible to quote. 



" Birds in the selection of their nesting-sites will adapt them- 

 selves to circumstances, as is well known, but as in the case just 

 mentioned [Scolecophagtis'] it is hard to arrive at an entirely 

 satisfactory conclusion. It is, for instance, easy to account for. 



.ythy \ht Ai-chibnieo/ei-rttgineits should br.eed on the ground in 

 Dakota, in many cases at any rate, and why Falco peregrinus 

 anattim in trees in Kansas, but there are a number of other such 

 departures from the old established rules, which cannot be so 

 easily accounted for " (C. E. Bendire, in litt., January 21, 1890). 



Captain Bendire also ekes Bttteo swaitisoni z.nd ArcJiibuteo 

 ferriigineus as birds which sbnietimeS nest on the ground in 

 places where there is plenty of suitable timber, which one might 

 have expected them to make use of. 



These variations in habit are certainly puzzling : probably the 

 important factors in deciding the terrestrial or arboreal nesting- 

 habits of a bird are four : — 



(i) Ability to build arboreal nests. — If this varied in a locality 

 where arboreal nests were not greatly preferable to terrestrial 

 ones, we can see how a minority of clever birds might build in 

 trees, and a majority of duffers on the ground. The slight dis- 

 advantage to the ground-builders might be counterbalanced by 

 their numbers. 



(2) Danger of falling. — In regions where the trees are not 

 suitable for holding nests, or where very high winds prevail, a 

 terrestrial nest might be preferable ; though the same species in 

 another part of its range might do well to build arboreally. 



(3) Dangers of nesting on the ground. — Such dangers would 

 arise from terrestrial enemies, floods, &c., and would vary greatly 

 -no doubt in different regions. Where things were otherwise 

 fairly balanced, a slight difference in this respect might decide 

 the nesting of a bird. 



(4) Means of defenee.—Some birds, with special means of 

 defence or of escaping observation, might build on the ground 

 where others would take to trees. T. D. A. Cockerell. 



West Cliff, Custer Co., Colorado. 



Russian Transliteration. 



I AM afraid the authors of the "new system" of translitera- 

 tion have misunderstood my letter in yours of April 10 (p. 534), 

 advocating " the tabulation of the system of transliteration which 

 has been so long in use in this country " in preference to the adop- 

 tion of the unnecessary novelties they propose tointroduce. Bythe 

 "system in use" I meant that for transliteration from Russian 

 into English, and certainly did not include the transliterations 

 from Russian into German which have been copied from books 

 or memoirs in that language into English catalogues or journals. 

 As practically all the examples the authors adduce in defence of 

 their "new system," including both the atlases and the works 

 with which they associate my name, areof this kind— ?.^. merely 

 copies of transliterations from Russian into German — I fail to 

 see what bearing they have on the question of transliteration 

 into English, however useful they might be in constructing a 

 system for transliteration from Russian into German. 



Another misapprehension is, they seem to imagine that 1 

 have propounded a system of transliteration of my own. I sin- 

 cerely hope I shall never be guilty of doing anything so rash. 

 I merely offered some friendly criticisms on the new system 

 which the authors had devised, and I may supplement my 

 remarks by here giving in tabular form the principal points in 

 which this system differs from that which I conceive to be the 

 English use : — ' 



English Use. New System. 



B ... V ... V 



I)b ... ff ... V 



r ... A before ^ or ?', ... gh 



otherwise g 

 at ... J ... ^h 



Kc ... .r ... ks 



y ... ou ... « 



X ... ch ... kh 



H ... tch ... ch 



MX ... shtch ... shch 



■ft ... S ... ye 



iti ... y ... ti 



10 ... II ... yu 



I have already given a few examples of names which look 

 uncouth when transliterated according to the new system, and I 

 here add one more. It is 



SKRZHIPSKII. 



When I wrote it down and observed its hieroglyphic appear- 

 ance, there arose somehow in my mind a vision of a new system 

 of chemical nomenclature devised many years ago by Laurent, 



