40 



Mr. Wolley appears to have been the first to notice this circumstance; but his observations remained 

 unpublished, and Gloger, who subsequently made a suggestion to the same effect, was the first to publish 

 (J. f. O. 1856, pp. 433-440) an account of the variation in the bills of seed-eating birds, in which the 

 present species is cited as an example. Professor Newton, referring to this, writes (I. c.) as follows : — 

 " But another and yet more remarkable seasonal change occurs in these birds, of which Wolley, during 

 his long residence in Lapland, seems to have been the first observer, though his full explanation of it 

 has not been made public. It had long been known that examples differed greatly in the size, and 

 especially in the length, of the bill ; and many naturalists were inclined to believe that this difference 

 indicated two races, if not species, of Redpoll. A certain amount of it, indeed, was obviously rather 

 apparent than real, being due to the length of the feathers on the bird's face; thus the bill of a 

 specimen obtained in winter always seemed much shorter than that of one procured in the summer ; 

 but from repeated examination of birds killed out of the same flock he satisfied himself that during the 

 latter season the horny covering of the mandibles was constantly growing longer, and attributed the 

 fact to the softer nature of the food then eaten, observing that when winter really set in, and the birds 

 were living solely on hard seeds, the edges and tip of the mandibles were rapidly worn down, so that the 

 bill at the beginning of spring had become considerably shorter than it was at the end of the preceding 

 summer. If this mode of accounting for the change be the true one, we can well understand that there 

 should be cases in which the waning and waxing of the bill may go on independently of the season, 

 provided only that the bird's food varies in places or at times sufficiently to produce the effects as 

 observed by Wolley at Muonioniska with reference only to the season." 



Tew groups present more difficulty in working out than do the Redpolls. When first I took this group 

 in hand I found that a far larger series of specimens than I then had at my disposal was indispen- 

 sable; but since that time, thanks to my friends, I have been able to make use of a considerable 

 series, and have found my views materially modified after having examined these examples. I am also 

 indebted to Professor Newton for much valuable cooperation. This gentleman was just preparing his 

 articles on Linota linaria and Linota rvfescens for the new edition of Yarrell on which he is engaged, 

 and proposed that he and I should work conjointly, an offer which I gladly accepted. I was at first 

 inclined to treat them all as one species ; for they certainly do run into each other in a most perplexing 

 manner : but I am now convinced that Professor Newton is correct in keeping them separate; for they 

 certainly do range into four races or forms, which it is more convenient to treat as distinct species than 

 to unite together into one. As may be imagined, owing to the confusion which has existed amongst 

 these forms, owing chiefly, it would seem, to the lack of an adequate number of specimens for exami- 

 nation by those who have hitherto worked at this group, the synonymy of the Redpolls has been in a 

 rather tangled condition. Dr. E. Coues (I. c.) did good work in trying to bring the synonymy into 

 some order ; but it appears to me that he erred on the side of subdividing too much, though one, at 

 least, of the species differentiated by him will, in my opinion, stand ; and Professor Newton seems now to 

 have reduced the number of really distinguishable Europeau forms to their legitimate limit. There can 

 be no doubt that the present form (or species, as it will perhaps be the most convenient to term it) is, as 

 stated by Professor Newton, the true Fringilla linaria of Linnams, though, as this gentleman remarks 

 (Yarr. Brit. B. ed. 4, i. p. 134), "authors, through imperfect knowledge, have very generally mis- 

 applied it to the other. The difference between the two was first clearly shown by Vieillot, who, in an 

 admirable paper read before the Academy of Sciences of Turin, July 7th, 1816, very accurately described 

 them under the respective names of Linaria borealis and L. ru/escens, and rightly identified the former 

 with the Linnsean F. linaria (Mem. Accad. Sc. Torino, xxiii. p. 199). This communication, perhaps 

 from the discredit cast upon it by Temminck, has been much neglected; and to the zoologist last named 

 is certainly due the confusion that long existed on this subject ; for he at first refused to recognize the 

 distinctness of the two forms ; and when at last compelled by evidence to do so, he wrongly identified 



