On the Linnean Motacilla stapazina, 75 



as she could certainly not have gone through it. In 

 some of the enclosures there are hedges of Thuya, with 

 a wire-netting fence two feet high in front of them, to 

 prevent the Geese getting underneath. The female finally 

 decided to make her nest under one of these hedges. To 

 get there she was seen to jump upon this two-feet-high 

 fence, halance herself on the thin top, and plunge into 

 the hedge. She scraped a little round depression in the soil 

 under the evergreens, and then laid her eggs, accomplishing 

 her jumping- feat each time that she wanted to go in or out 

 of her nest. Unfortunately she did not care to sit, so that 

 we had to put her eggs under a bantam hen : I am sorry 

 to say, however, that they did not hatch, but proved to be 

 unfertile. The eggs arc yellowish white, and rather more 

 pointed at one end than the other. 



Gooilust, s'Graveland, 



30th October, 1903. 



V. — The Linnean Motacilla stapazina identified and restored 

 to use. By T. Salvadori, H.M.B.O.U. 



Looking through the pages of the recently published vol. iv. 

 of the ' Hand-list of the Genera and Species of Birds/ by 

 Dr. Bowdler Sharpc, I happened to stop at the genus 

 Saxicola. I was rather surprised to find that no species 

 bore the familiar Linnean name stapazina, which is (p. 179) 

 relegated to the synonyms of Saxicola rufa (Steph.). That 

 a Linnean name should stand as a synonym of one published 

 more than fifty years later seems to be quite against the 

 rules of nomenclature ! 



I know that the name stapazina has been too often mis- 

 understood, so that many mistakes have been made by 

 ornithologists, who have applied the term to two different 

 species — the Black-eared Wheatear (Sa.vicola albicollis Vieill. 

 = S. aurita Temm.) and the Russet Wheatear, which has 

 the throat black, whereas the former has it white. Should 

 the difficulty of identifying Linnets Motacilla stapazina be 

 insuperable, I quite understand that we ought to give up 



