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



lost the scent altogether in Middendorff's ' Sibirische Reise/ 

 p. 166 (1851). Since Professor Newton has not been able 

 to kill this rat, as, I think, we may fairly infer from the foot- 

 note already referred to (Newton's ' Yarrell/ i. p. 541), I am 

 driven to the conclusion that " lugens, III./ 3 and " lugubris, 

 Pall./' quoted by Middendorff, are both myths. My next 

 attempt was to try and catch a M. lugens of Pallas, or of any 

 body else. I had nearly as many stumbles in this as in the 

 previous runs. In the ' Fauna Japonica' Schlegel gives a 

 reference to Temminck's ' Manuel ' as " part iii. p. 620/' which 

 ought to be read " part iv. p. 620," an error which I found he 

 had previously made in his ' Rev. Grit, des Ois. d'Eur.' p. 68. 

 In spite of these difficulties I did not lose the scent until 1832, 

 where, so far as I have been able to trace it, M. lugens, 

 Pallas, appears for the first time in Kittlitz's ' Kupfertafeln 

 zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel/ p. 16, pi. 21. fig. 1, from 

 Kamtchatka. 



From this peninsula there is fortunately a series of skins 

 in the St. -Petersburg Museum, which I had an opportunity 

 of examining, and which I identified as M. lugens of Temm. 

 & Schl. Kittlitz describes his bird as the commonest sum- 

 mer bird in Kamtchatka, and remarks that in autumn it has a 

 white throat, bounded beneath by black, and an ash-grey back. 

 The description is very meagre, and the plate of the bird in 

 breeding-dress represents a state of plumage which I have 

 not seen. The throat is in full summer plumage, i. e. black 

 to the base of the bill, but the cheeks remain in winter plu- 

 mage. A reference to the excellent plate of M. luff ens in the 

 ' Fauna Japonica ' (pi. 25) will show that in full breeding- 

 plumage the black on the throat extends up to, and forms 

 one mass with, the black line through the eye. 



We must admit that the description and also the plate of 

 M. lugens, Pallas, apud Kittlitz, are scarcely as satisfactory 

 as we could have wished upon which to found a species ; but 

 as the Japanese bird is the only Pied Wagtail hitherto found 

 in Kamtchatka, there is at least a strong probability that 

 Kittlitz's name refers to this bird. There is no evidence to 

 prove that Pallas ever named a bird M. lugens. M. lugens, 



