1884.] Stejnicgek on the Gc7ius Acanthis. 147 



edlv sujDen'or size. But intermediate forms are met with, and in 

 color there !S hardly any difference whatever. It has been 

 generally asserted that horjiema?i?ili has a proportionally longer 

 tail, a statement positively contradicted, however, by the numer- 

 ous actual measurements taken by me.* 



The collection brought back by me from the Commander 

 Islands proves the occurrence of the true exillpes in Eastern 

 Asia, and to this form is referable all instances of canescens said 

 to have been obtained there (v. Schrenck, Swinhoe, Taczanowski, 

 etc.), and there is a bare possibility that it is the same form 

 which Severzow calls Linaria sibirica (J. f. Orn., 1879, p. 

 i8^ — nee Linaria sibirica Boie). Mr. Dresser, in his 'Birds of 

 Europe,' refers to exilipes several light colored specimens from 

 Northern Europe, especially two examples from Tromso (70° 

 N. L., Norwav). I have in my private collection (No. 209) a 

 summer bird from the same locality shot by my friend Sparre 

 Schneider on the 13th of June, 1S77. The bill is dark, and of 

 the same size and shape as in small specimens of linaria. The 

 color is very pale, and the streaks on the underparts nearly obso- 

 lete, thus reminding one very much of exilipes., but the rump is 

 decidedly streaked and the proportions correspond with those 

 Ctilinarla. I feel pretty sure that the bird in question does not 

 belong to exilipes., but to a pale northern race of linaria., to 

 which is applicable the name Acanthis linaria pallescens (Ho- 

 meyer) . From this I am inclined to believe that exilipes does not 

 occur in Europe. 



Nov^^ a few remarks upon the white colored short-billed forms. 

 In 1834, in Volume III of his 'Birds of Europe,' Gould figured a 

 Redpoll, which he called Linaria canesceizs., a name later 

 applied by Bonaparte and many other ornithologists to the Green- 

 land light species. It has, however, by later authors been identi- 

 fied as a representative of the true linaria., of which it therefore 

 has been given as a synonym, as by Dresser, Newton, Seebohm, 

 and the committee of the B.O. U. in its 'List of British Birds.' 

 Unfortunately I have not access to Gould's work, but as the 

 Greenland species is easily recognizable, I do not hesitate in ac- 

 cepting the identification of the above authorities, as flir as the 



* V. Homeyer (J. f. Orn. 1879, p. 183) says that the tail of holboeUii is 'longer' than 

 that of hornemannli, but this is probably only a slip of the pen, and that he meant 

 'shorter' instead. 



