Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Siberia. 349 



p. 177), are M. hodysoni. Middendorff's skins of M. lugens 

 in the St. -Petersburg Museum are M. ocularis. In the same 

 museum there is, however, a fine series of skins of the true 

 M. lugens from Kamtchatka. 



The synonymy of this bird, simple as it appears, is most 

 bewildering. We have the authority of Mr. Hume (' Stray 

 Feathers/ v. p. 434) for the assertion that, in the opinion of 

 Professor Alfred Newton, " nomenclature bears the same re- 

 lation to real natural history that rat-hunting does to real 

 sport/' Be this as it may, I do not know any one fonder of 

 a "rat-hunt" of this kind than Professor Newton. In his 

 article on the Pied Wagtail, in his new edition of Yarrell's 

 ' British Birds/ we have an excellent resume of a day's " rat- 

 hunting." The first rat he starts is Motacilla lugubris, Pallas, 

 and after running it through the fourth and third parts of 

 Temminck's ' Manual of Ornithology/ he finally loses the 

 scent in the first part in 1820 (ed. 2, p. 253). The descrip- 

 tion here given being that of a bird which, in Professor 

 Newton's opinion, is " unquestionably identical " with the 

 British Pied Wagtail, that bird becomes M. lugubris, Pallas, 

 apud Temminck ; and since there is no evidence that Pallas 

 ever gave the name of M. lugubris to any Wagtail, our British 

 bird becomes M. lugubris, Temminck. The next " rat " that 

 Professor Newton starts is M. lugens, Illig. This, he tells us 

 in a footnote (loc. cit.}, he chased as far back as 1850, where 

 he suddenly lost the scent in the ' Fauna Japonica.' I must 

 confess that my attempts to run down this animal have been 

 still less successful. I started it in Oustalet's ' Oiseaux de la 

 Chine ' (p. 300), where I was at once tripped up by two errors 

 (" F. Jap. Aves, 25," should read " F. Jap. Aves, p. 60, pi. 25 "; 

 and Swinh. (1860) 357," should read " Swinh. Ibis, 1860, 

 p. 357 "). I picked up the scent again in the P. Z. S. 1870, 

 p. 130, and stumbled on two more errors (" P. Z. S. 1863, 

 p. 17," ought to be " P. Z. S. 1863, p. 275," and "Ibis, 1863, 

 p. 85," ought to be "Ibis, 1863, p. 309 ") . Recovering myself, 

 I pursued the trail through Schrenck's f Amur-Lande/ 1860, 

 with only a slight mishap (the page in Pall. Zoogr. Rosso- 

 Asiat. i. intended to be referred to is 507, not 307), and I 



