Dr. Arthur G. Butler,



64



from the market.” That statement was published many years

ago, how many I cannot sa5 ,r definitely, as the book is undated ;

but I should think about twenty-two years in all probability.


The very similar P. cervicalis to which, as I pointed out in

my “ Foreign Finches in Captivity,” the name Brown-throated

was better suited than to P. capitata , appears never to have been

recognised as being imported until the present year; when our

Member, Mr. James Housden, was fortunate enough to secure a

fairly large consignment, from which I obtained two pairs.


At the recent ‘ London and Provincial Ornithological

Society’s ’ Show at the Crystal Palace, Mr. Housden exhibited a

pair, and Mr. Storey (I think) a third example of this species, to

which, however, Mr. Swaysland awarded no prize ; as, he told

me, the species used to be imported as freely as the Common

Pope, and he considered the plumage of the exhibited specimens

very inferior to that of a Pope-Cardinal on the same bench.


As there is no record either in Dr. Russ’ very complete

work—‘ Die fremdlandischen Stubenvogel,’ or in any of the

published Zoological Society lists, of the importation at any

time of P. cervicalis ; and as it is impossible, if it were ever

imported as freely as P. larvaia, that it could have failed to

reach any of the European Zoological Gardens, and so find a

place in Dr. Russ’ work ; one can only explain Mr. Swaysland’s

statement by that very natural peculiarity of human memory

which tends to exaggerate facts with the passage of years, and by

the second fact that somewhere between the year 1873 and

perhaps 1878 a certain number of the very similar P. capitata was

being imported.


That these two supposed species were not recognised as

distinct by dealers, is evident from Mr. Abrahams’ observation

that my bird was “ the Yellow-billed or Brown-throated Car¬

dinal,” and that such a keen observer of the slightest colour

differences as Mr. Abrahams was, should not have distinguished

two related birds so large as these Cardinals, is I think sufficient

to make us carefully examine into the characters upon which

they have been separated.


It must be borne in mind that when the twelfth volume



