THE PINE GROSBEAK AS A BRITISH BIRD. 125 



former numbering 167, the latter 127. Not more than a dozen 

 have been found in Portuguese ; and in the Scandinavian lan- 

 guages the number dwindles down from 62 in Swedish and the 

 same number in Danish to nine only in Norwegian. 



In Hungarian we find three ; in Polish, eight ; in Eussian, 

 twenty- one ; while the Eastern languages are represented by 

 Persian, eight; Arabic, one; and Hindustani, one. In regard 

 to these the numbers are probably under-estimated ; for we should 

 certainly expect to learn that in Persian and Arabic a good many 

 treatises on horses, not easily accessible, are well known to 

 Oriental scholars. 



These statistics are of interest, as showing not only the 

 importance attached to the history of the Horse in all ages, but 

 the shares in which different nations have contributed to the 

 literature of the subject in all its branches. What a splendid 

 monograph of the Horse might now be prepared from the mate- 

 rials which have been shown to exist ! 



ON THE CLAIM OF THE PINE GROSBEAK TO BE 

 REGARDED AS A BRITISH BIRD. 



By J. H. Gurney, Jun., F.Z.S. 



To quote from Mr. Howard Saunders's recently published 

 * Manual of British Birds,' " the Pine Grosbeak is a bird which 

 is at most an exceedingly rare visitor" (p. 191), but he adds that, 

 all things considered, he does not feel justified in rejecting it. 

 Now, agreeing as I do with his remarks, I am the more convinced 

 that the history of every reported British example requires the 

 most careful sifting ; for the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence 

 generally offered will hardly be credited by those who have 

 not examined the records. Yet because no amateur British 

 ornithologist has ever had the good fortune to handle, in this 

 country, a recently-killed bird of this species, we are not to cast 

 doubt on every specimen said to have been procured. Indeed 

 Mr. Saunders mentions some killed in Heligoland, Belgium, and 

 other countries of Europe. Then, why should it not be found 

 sometimes in England ? In a former volume of * The Zoologist' 

 (1877, p. 242), I gave a list of every supposed occurrence (twenty- 

 five in all) of this bird in the British Islands, and now propose 



