102 Correspondence.


fanciers' bird, that the Museum Catalogue ignores its existence :

in like manner the existence of the white variety of Munia

(Padda) oryzivora, bred by the Chinese, is ignored ; as also the

familiar sports of the domesticated Canary and Rock-Pigeon.


With regard to the use of the specific name Urceginthus

bengalus for the Crimson-eared Waxbill or Cordou-bleu, I think

it a pit}' ; because one can never be certain that it was intended

for Benguela and not a blunder on the part of the describer. (In

the old days nearly every Natural History specimen, the locality

of which was unknown, was labelled as "Habitat in India" or

" in Indiis," there being apparently little appreciation of the

difference even between East and West Indies), but whether the

describer of the Cordou-bleu meant bengala to indicate that it

came from Bengal or Benguela, it is not likely that it will ever

again be called the Bengali ; therefore to continue to call our

little domesticated bird in its Guinea-pig colours a " Bengalee''

will certainly be far less confusing than the entirely different

application of the trivial names Mauuikiu and Manakin, the

former for the Munia group of Ploceidce, the latter for the Tit-like

Pipridce ; or the manifold application of the term Sparrow to birds

of all t)'pes from an Accentor to a Grass-finch.


Is it advisable to give names to the more or less stable

domesticated sports of fanciers' birds? If we accept scientific

names for the three varieties of the Bengalee, why should we not

equally propose names for all the known sports of the domes-

tic Canary, of the Rock-pigeon, and of the inhabitants of our

poultry-yards? And that will not be the end, for all the domestic

races of Mammalia and the Chinese fish-abortions will have to-

come in ! It is too terrible to contemplate with serenity.



CORRESPONDENCE,



COLOUR-CHANGE IN FEATHERS.

Sir, — In your current issue you have a short notice on Mr. Beebe's

article on the American Laughing Gull in the last number of the ' Auk.'

Judging from this individual bird, and brushing aside rather contemptuous-

ly the idea that in 1906 there could still be found any ornithologists who

believe in ' colour-change,' Mr. Beebe, as if to put the finishing touch on an

already moribund belief, states that colour-change is impossible.



