500 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



mefint rustimla, a well-known diminutive of rusHcus, like gal- 

 linula from gallma. Had he meant a ' husbandman/ on the 

 analogy of agricola, he must have written ruricola. Gloger 

 seems to have been the first to notice this discrepancy, thus 

 expressing himself in a note ( 'Schlesiens Wirbelthier — Fauna,' 

 Breslau, 1833, p. 47) ; — RusHculus (adject.) =rMsiic?«s ; rusticula 

 avis, Plin. Dagagen ist rusticola eine nach Sinn und Ety- 

 mologie gleich falsche Bildung.' And Naumann followed his 

 example. In classical times rusticula was Latin for some 

 kind of Partridge or Grouse, not merely the simple feminine 

 of the adjective; e.^., Pliny (Nat. Hist. X. 54), speaking of 

 the gait of various birds, says, ' ambulant aliquae, ut cornices ; 

 . . . currunt, ut perdices, rusticula,^ &c. It is moreover 

 obvious, upon the face of it that no such word as rusticola 

 ever existed. We certainly, then, want more evidence than 

 1 have hitherto come across to do otherwise than quote the 

 specific name of the Woodcock as Scolopax rusticula." 



'Mdkrn to ih Mikw 



Sir, 



This morning I noticed a King Crow {Buchanga 

 longicaudata) sitting upon a Peepul tree in the act of devour- 

 ing an lora (7. tiphia.) 



Be held the bird in his claw, and tore it to pieces with his 

 bill similar to a hawk, removing the feathers first. 



Whether he had killed it himself I don't know, but as the 

 body was quite fresh, in all probability he had. 



E. A. Butler. 

 Bklgaum, 

 'Hill December 1879. 



Sir, 



With reference to your footnotes, « S. F./' VIIL, 386 



and 387, I beg to state that in all probability the bird I saw 

 myself in its wild state near Sukhur was Falumbus casiotis, 

 as corrected in the list by you. 



As to the other specimen which I saw in the Karachi Museum, 

 if it was procured in Sind, it was probably casiotis also, but if 

 not;, and 1 believe it to be an English specimen, it was probably 

 torqnaius. 



