Letters, Extracts, and Notices. 663 



latus was sufficiently indicated by Blyth in 1847 (Journ. 

 As. Soc. Beng. vol. xvi. p. 433 and footnote), and in his 

 ' Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum of the Asiatic 

 Society/ published in 1849, Blyth distinguished the two 

 Pipits under the names of Dendronanthus trivialis and 

 D. maculatus. The distinction was preserved by Horsfield 

 and Moore (Cat. Birds Mus. E. I. Co. vol. i. p. 354, 1854), 

 who, however, used different specific names — Anthus arboreus 

 and A. agilis. In Bly th's and Horsfield's Catalogues characters 

 were not added, but both forms were clearly described in 

 Jerdon's ' Birds of India/ vol. ii. p. 238 (1863), under the 

 names of Pipastes agilis and P. arboreus, whilst in the 

 appendix to vol. iii. p. 873 (1864) this note appeared : (< Ac- 

 cording to Blyth, Sykes's Anthus agilis is true A. arboreus, 

 and the common Indian race will therefore bear Hodgson's 

 name maculatus/' the last term being printed in small 

 capitals to shew that this name was adopted. I think it is 

 clear that even if Bly th's note of 1847 is not accepted as 

 sufficient (I should have no hesitation in accepting it), the 

 first to describe properly the Pipit now known as Anthus 

 maculatus was not Mr. Oates in 1883, but Dr. Jerdon in 

 1863. 



Apart altogether from the subject of trinomials, I think 

 the question whether A. trivialis and A. maculatus should 

 be regarded as " species " or " subspecies " is of some 

 interest. A. maculatus is unknown west of India proper 

 (the Hindostan of some map-makers), A. trivialis has only 

 been recorded in one instance east of the Bay of Bengal, 

 and this instance is now discredited by Mr. Oates, the 

 original collector. In India proper both kinds occur and 

 occasionally intermediate forms are met with. Both birds 

 breed in the Western Himalayas. Under these circum- 

 stances I would suggest that the intermediate birds, as in 

 some other similar cases, are simply hybrids between nearly 

 allied forms, which are entitled to specific rather than sub- 

 specific rank. 



Yours &c, 



A-tigust 1904. W. T. Blanford. 



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