042-2 The Zoologist — January, 1871. 



prettiest, the largest, the strongest, the best, achieved this end ; but 

 if the descendants bear the eugeuesic test, there is no reason to 

 regard them as specifically distinct; indeed, the current of opinion 

 seems already to have taken another direction, and it is happily 

 more common to hear an observant naturalist observing that he 

 " cannot consent to accept blank or blank as species" than that he 

 "observes a difference in length of tarsus, formation of skull or 

 colour of feather that must be specific:' This is particularly the 

 case in Entomology ; and when I hear Mr. Bond or Mr. Greening 

 assert, in direct opposition to my own conviction, that he cannot 

 accept the two phases of Bombyx Quercus or of Boarmia rhom- 

 boidaria as species, I feel that this very scepticism acts as a safe- 

 guard to Science, and, in some degree, also as an antidote to that 

 multiplication of specific names which has become so intolerably 

 irksome to the coleoiUerist. In the present instance the two 

 phases of ringed plover — but Mr. Stevenson must speak for him- 

 self. 



" Many of m\ rcadoi-s arc probably aware that the naturalists at Brighton, 

 and other parts of the south coast, have for some years distinguished a 

 smaller race of ringed plovers, which make their appearance in May and 

 again in August, and are said to differ also in note from the ordinary bird, 

 which have eggs and even young, at times, before the arrival of these later 

 migrants. It is not, however, I believe, generally known that this smaller 

 race is occasionally killed on Breydon ; and I believe for the most part in 

 May, although a rccentlydiilled specimen was shown to me on the II th of 

 March, 1807. Unfortunately, I have had no opportunity of examining 

 these birds in the flesh, and cannot say, therefore, if there is any diliercnce 

 in plumage between males and females, or give suificieutly accurate measure- 

 ments for comparison with those of the larger race. I am desirous, however, 

 to draw the especial attention of Yarmouth ornithologists to this suliject, that 

 the habits of this smaller race may be closely observed ; more particularly 

 as to the date of its arrival in spring aud autumn, and whether seen, at 

 such times, in separate flocks or in company with the larger kind. I am 

 not certani that the smaller race has ever been found breeding on the south 

 coast, but in this county I have looked for it in vain during the nesting 

 season, and as before stated, the birds of the warrens are identical with 

 those which frequent the sea-shore. All the Norfolk examples, also, of this 

 smaller ringed plover that I have yet seen in collections have been killed at 

 Yarmouth, including one iu the Dennis Collection at Bury St. Edmunds. 

 Judging from specinieus of each bird in my own and the Museum collection, 

 the larger bird differs rather in its general bulk than iu the comparative 



