88 WHITE-WINGED PIED WAGTAIL. 



In all stages however it may at once be distinguished from any 

 variety of M. alba, by the wing primaries, more than half of the 

 upper portion of which are pure white, while a white fringe, broader 

 in summer than in winter, runs along the outer edge of the secondaries. 

 The middle wing coverts are also pure white." 



Canon Tristram also, "Ibis," 1866, in a paper on the Ornithology 

 of Palestine, p. 291, admits that the bird described by me in the 

 first edition as M. lugubris is identical with the bird noticed by Dr. 

 Kirk on the Zambesi as M. vidua, and Professor Newton has con- 

 clusively shown that the word lugubris must be applied to our 

 British Pied Wagtail, M. yarrellii. Canon Tristram thinks that Dr. 

 Kirk's bird assists to clear up the mystery caused by the unfortunate 

 conflict of terminology, which was right and that which was supposed 

 to be right. "I think," says the Canon, "we have here the difficulty 

 explained. The true M. lugubris (— M. vidua, Sund.,) is an African 

 form, only occasionally penetrating to the north, probably by the 

 shores of the Red Sea, and so from time to time found in the 

 Mediterranean." 



The following are Dr. Kirk's notes, "Ibis," 1864, p. 318, on Birds 

 of Zambesi region: — " Motacilla vidua. Native name on Zambesi 

 river f Droindivi.' Everywhere. Never injured by the natives, who 

 have some superstitious belief connected with it." 



In the P. Z. S., for 1863, p. 275, Mr. Swinhoe, in his paper on 

 the Birds of China, has been at some pains in endeavouring to 

 solve the difficulties attached to the lugubris sou lug ens group. I 

 will quote from his paper: — "Under the term M. lugens seu lugubris 

 there has been a confusion of the races of the Pied Wagtails, which 

 I have been at some pains to clear up. The difficulty began with 

 Temminck, who in his e Manuel d'Ornithologie,' p. 175, described 

 Pallas's Russian species from Japanese examples. He there gives the 

 summer plumage as having the forehead white. At a later date 

 Schlegel refused to acknowledge the existence of Pallas's species as 

 a European bird. Pallas, however, procured his typical specimens, 

 as he tells us, from the shores of the Black Sea; and it has since 

 been brought by officers from the Crimea, and by Mr. Tristram from 

 Egypt. One of Mr. Tristram's two specimens (both of which I have 

 carefully examined) has been figured in Dr. Bree's work on the 

 Birds of Europe. I have no hesitation therefore in applying Pallas's 

 name to the race or species found in Western Asia adjoining Europe. 

 Middendorff (Sib. Reis.) applies Pallas's name to the Wagtail of 

 Amoorland, which from his description is identical with the bird 

 found in China, of which I possess numerous examples in all plu- 



