Birds. 3511 



result from calling it to the notice of naturalists. I do not anticipate, 

 however, that the habits of our common species, when they shall have 

 been ascertained, will be found to differ much from those of the Ame- 

 rican form, more especially since, as far as could be determined, those 

 of the red-winged species* of Japan do not; and I have been thus 

 diffuse on the subject of the American bird, in consequence of the la- 

 mentable blank left in our books of Natural History by our ignorance 

 of those of Ampelis garrulus. 1 only trust that in compiling so much 

 from other authors, I have not blindly copied from them, so as to fall 

 under the condemnation of Sir Hamon L'Estrange, who says that 

 " Naturalists follow one another as wilde geese flye." 



Alfred Newton. 



Elvedon Hall, June 4, 1852. 



Note on the proper Name of the "Sylvia turdoides? — Allow me to make a few 

 remarks on the two notices of the occurrence of ihis bird in England, which have ap- 

 peared in your pages, (Zool. 1876 and 3476). The English name given to it in these 

 two cases is not, I think, that by which it has been usually described. The bird is 

 the " Reed Thrush " of Latham's ' Synopsis ' (iii. 32), and of the British Museum 

 'Catalogue' (App.), and the " Great Sedge Warbler" of Gould's ' Birds of Europe.' 

 It appears to me, therefore, that it would be better at once to discard the name of 

 " Thrush Nightingale," which might be more properly applied, if this has not already 

 been done, to the Sylvia Philomela (the large nightingale of southern and eastern 

 Europe), in order to resume one of the older names. The law of priority in nomen- 

 clature is also entirely set at nought in speaking of this bird as Sylvia turdoides ; for 

 according to the British Museum ' Catalogue,' it is the Motacilla arundinacea of Lin- 

 naeus's ' Systema Naturae,' it has therefore a claim to that specific name, prior to our 

 own reed warbler discovered by Mr. Lightfoot ; and this claim is recognized by Mr. G. 

 R. Gray in the admirable Catalogue just mentioned, since this last bird has there the 

 specific name strepera applied to it, which, it appears, was originally given by Vieillot. 

 May I also beg the present possessors of the supposed eggs of Sylvia turdoides, alluded 

 to by Mr. Hancock (Zool. 1876) as having been found in Northamptonshire, to insert 

 a description of them in the * Zoologist ' ? — Alfred Newton ; Elveden Hall, Thetford, 

 June 4, 1852. 



Note on the Common Red-poll, (Linota linaria). — This bird, according to my ex- 

 perience, is at all times a rare species in Suffolk ; a record of its nesting in my orchard 

 may therefore be sufficiently interesting to merit a place in the ' Zoologist.' Seven 

 or eight years ago I saw a pair of them in my grounds, but I had not met with them 

 since until about a week ago, when I was much pleased to see them flitting about 

 the apple-trees in my orchard, and paying most particular attention to the buds of the 



*Le Jaseur Phcenicoptere, Bombycilla phcenicoptera, Siebold, Faun. Jap. 84, pi. 44. 



