348 Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 



the primaries which are more or less white. M . lugens may 

 always be recognized by some of the secondaries being white 

 across both webs, and frequently one or two of them are pure 

 white throughout . The amount of white on the primaries 

 varies very much. In summer this species comes very near 

 M. maderaspatana, having a black back, and the white on 

 the head being confined to the forehead and supercilium. 

 On the average M. lugens is a smaller bird than M. maderas- 

 patana ; but large skins of the former species measure more in 

 length of wing than small skins of the latter species. In M. 

 maderaspatana the black on the head comes down in a peak to 

 the base of the bill. M. lugens has a pure white forehead, 

 the black on the head not approaching within half an inch of 

 the base of the bill. This appears, however, not to be a per- 

 fectly stable character, as I have a skin in my collection of 

 the last-named species from Hakodate, in which the black 

 of the forehead comes down in a peak to the base of the bill, 

 as though a not very remote ancestor of this individual had 

 migrated to India instead of China for the winter, and had 

 there intermarried with one of his cousins, as our friends the 

 Crows are in the habit of doing. In winter M. lugens comes 

 very near to M . ocularis. Both species have then grey backs, 

 black heads, a gorget of black on the throat, and a black line 

 passing from the base of the bill through the eye, and joining 

 the black at the back of the neck. M. ocularis is, however, 

 a grey-backed Wagtail, both summer and winter, and has a 

 grey shoulder ; whereas M. lugens loses the black on the back 

 in winter, but retains it on the shoulder the whole year. 

 Independently of these minor differences, the amount of white 

 on the primaries and secondaries of M. lugens serves to distin- 

 guish it easily at all seasons of the year. 



The geographical distribution of this species, so far as I 

 have been able to ascertain it, from the examination of well- 

 authenticated skins, appears to range from Kamtchatka to 

 Japan in summer, and in winter along the coast of China and 

 the opposite islands, Formosa, &c. I can find no evidence of 

 its having been found further west. The skins in Dresser's 

 collection, collected by Severtzoff in Turkestan (Ibis, 1876, 



