48



Correspondence



here ! Having read with great interest the account of Quail breeding

in Japan (pp. 24-8) by Mr. N. Taka-Tsukasa, might I inquire of him

whether the birds there (apparently Coturnixjaponica, though no species

name given) quarrel when wild to his knowledge ?


Perhaps readers acquainted with Indian life could also give some

information as to pugnacious behaviour about the species above referred

to by me.


Frederick D. Welch, M.R.C.S.


March 4, 1921.


[Dr. Welch-was mistaken in his identification of the Quails, as the

only two examples of Turnix tanki in the Gardens of late were a true

pair of which the female died from egg-binding in February. Conflicts

between birds in the wild state are not common, because there is plenty

of space for all. —Ed.]



THE SONGS OF THE CIRL BUNTING AND LESSER WHITE-


THROAT


Sirs, —The songs and cries of birds and mammals have always

interested me, and on more than one occasion I have mentioned in

print the fact that the monotonous song of the Cirl Bunting is often

impossible to distinguish from that of the Lesser White-throat.


Several “closet naturalists” have shaken their heads over such

an assertion ; indeed, one of our popular catch-and-label-your-new-

sub-species school mocked at the very idea of anybody who professed

to know one British bird from another mistaking the song of the Cirl

Bunting for that of the Lesser White-throat.


Therefore, I was not a little uplifted to find to-day on reading

what Montagu, the first man to recognize the Cirl Bunting in this

country, had to say about this very point.


Perhaps you will allow me to quote his words from his famous

Dictionary of British Birds ? Of the Cirl Bunting he writes : “ The

monotonous song of the male was incessant, shrill, and piercing ; so

much resembling the vociferous call notes of the Babillard, that it

requires considerable knowledge of their language not to mistake the

one for the other.”



Philip Gosse.



