Letters, Extracts, and Notices. GG1 



harterti of Hellmayr is really a form of Certhia brachy- 

 dactyla ! Thus we see that the old dispute as to the value 

 of species continues strong even among the believers in sub- 

 species ! The members of the " old school " may therefore 

 continue on the way that they think to be correct, notwith- 

 standing the kind wishes of Herr Hellmayr (cf. Journ. f. 

 Ornith. 1903, p. 404), who in rather coarse terms advises us 

 to get rid of all the non-believers in the new code (for the 

 benefit of science) as soon as possible ! 



Yours &c, 

 Braunschweig, Dr. O. Finsch. 



June 1904. 



Sirs, — May I venture to point out that in your review 

 of Dr. Fulton's interesting paper " On the Habits of the 

 Long-tailed Cuckoo in New Zealand" you are inaccui'ate 

 in your statement (supra, p. 468) that Dr. Fulton gives " a 

 list of sixteen species which are known, with more or less 

 certainty, to be the foster-parents of Urodynamis " ? It is 

 true that the author mentions sixteen cases, more or less 

 specific, that have come to his knowledge, but the hosts 

 were only ten native species and a Brown Linnet. The 

 evidence adduced in some of these cases is anything but 

 satisfactory ; and one knows how even persons who are 

 tolerably good observers are liable to make mistakes in 

 identifying birds on the wing. I have no doubt whatever 

 that Miro albifrons, Myiomoira macrocephala, and Clitonyx 

 ochrocephala have been sometimes pressed into the service ; 

 but I am very sceptical about several of the other specigs 

 mentioned. I think it is highly unlikely, for example, that 

 our Wood-Pigeon (which is strictly frugivorous) should ever 

 have been the foster-parent of the Cuckoo, for it would 

 know nothing of the necessity of feeding the young bird on 

 caterpillars, on which it almost wholly subsists ; and I think 

 it just as unlikely that the Tui has ever filled the office, 

 seeing what a determined and chronic hostility exists 

 between that bird and the Cuckoo. Then, again, even a 

 practised observer might be mistaken in thinking that he 



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