72 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



adult to immature birds which they show has really nothing to do with the 

 question under consideration. The Shore Lark, Otocorys alpestris, and 

 Richard's Pipit, Anthus richardi, occur so regularly and in such numbers 

 that Western Europe must be regarded as one of their regular winter 

 quarters, and consequently their evidence cannot affect the question. The 

 Little Bunting, Emberiza pusilla, and the Rustic Bunting, E. rustica, breed 

 commonly near Archangel, and their natural fly-line to the south is down 

 the Baltic; but probably — like the Shore Lark and Richard's Pipit — they 

 have comparatively recently extended their breeding-range in a westerly 

 direction, and are gradually establishing a western line of migration which 

 is more and more frequented every autumn. They can scarcely be regarded 

 as accidental visitors to Heligoland, and their evidence on the question 

 under adjudication must be ruled to be out of court. In the second place, 

 what does Mr. Cordeaux mean by the term " immature birds"? Of course 

 he includes young in first plumage. Young in first plumage of the various 

 species of Limicola appear by thousands on Heligoland, but there is no 

 instance of any bird belonging to the Turdince (as defined by Mr. Oates 

 and myself) appearing on Heligoland in first plumage; for the simple 

 reason that every migratory species belonging to this subfamily always 

 moults before it migrates. We may assume that Mr. Cordeaux includes 

 young in first winter plumage, as he admits Turdus ruficollis and T.fuscatus 

 in that plumage, but does he include young in first spring plumage? 

 List A consists of 122 birds which have overshot their mark in spring on 

 their migration from their winter quarters to their breeding grounds, and 

 eleven birds which have made the great blunder of migrating north instead 

 of south in autumn. Mr. Gatke admits that the latter are young birds, 

 but he asserts that the former are old birds. I think his assertion that the 

 122 birds obtained in Heligoland in spring are old birds is incorrect. 

 I have no doubt that most of them were birds of the year — that is to say, 

 birds not a year old, birds which had not yet bred, birds which were 

 making their first journey to their breeding grounds. It would require a 

 very accurate knowledge of the minute differences between the plumage of 

 birds in their first spring dress and of adults to decide the point; a know- 

 ledge that Mr. Gatke can have had no means of acquiring, and of which 

 there is, of course, no evidence to be found in his book. " Turdus varius, 

 9 old, no young." — I am inclined to think that Mr. Gatke has never seen 

 an old example of White's Thrush : — when I wrote the fifth volume of the 

 'Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum' I do not think that I had 

 done so; since then I have seen some hundreds of Japanese examples of 

 this very handsome species, and I find that in most of them the upper 

 parts, the breast, and the flanks are suffused with golden buff; and the 

 pale tips of the lesser wing-coverts and the peculiar Geocichline markings 

 on the inner webs of the primaries are buff. Such I take to be birds of 



