5506 Birds. 



another chance never offers, and ultimately information is wanting on 

 most important points : from committing this error I lost opportunities 

 of obtaining one or more species of black and white wagtails, and now, 

 in endeavouring to throw together these few notes, I find myself de- 

 ficient, not in the time of having observed these birds, but of the 

 name of the species, and cannot tell whether it was the same bird ob- 

 served in the Crimea in April and September, or during the winter at 

 Scutari, when they were congregated. There may have been three or 

 more species : I have, however, the pleasure of here recording the 

 occurrence of two species for certain, which I was led to search for, 

 from having seen a yellow-coloured wagtail while riding on the north 

 side of Sebastopol Harbour to Fort Constantine. My next chance, 

 two days after (for a day of duty intervened), I was up by sunrise, and 

 away on my horse across the plain of Balaclava to the Inkermann 

 valley, or lower part of the valley of the Tchernaya : I was very for- 

 tunate this morning, for I added to my collection four new species, 

 and for the first time observed two of the Hirundines as well as two 

 species of sandpiper. The two were the grayheaded wagtail (Mota- 

 cilia Jlava), shot by itself, which proved to be a female on dissection, 

 and the blackheaded wagtail (Motacilla melanocephala), a male in 

 fine summer plumage; this was on the 24th of April. On no other 

 occasion did I observe either of these, but Dr. William Carte procured 

 a specimen of the first (M. flava) in April, and unluckily committed 

 the same error as myself with regard to the black and white-coloured 

 wagtails, which he often observed. 



Anthida. 



As in Britain, so in the Crimea, the meadow pipit (Anthus pra- 

 tensis) must be a resident during winter and spring, if not for the 

 summer and remainder of the year, as my first meeting with it was on 

 the fourth day of the year, and I kept up a casual acquaintance till the 

 second week in April, when, being out one morning on the hills near 

 the sea, I observed small parties of birds continually coming north 

 from the sea : I shot two out of distinct parties, one of which was the 

 meadow pipit and the other the tree pipit (Anthus arboreus). This is 

 the last note in my journal of having seen the former, but there is no 

 reason why it should be put down as not resident in the country 

 during the year, for I was but a single unassisted observer, and at 

 best but a rough field naturalist. Although these two birds are said 

 to have been so frequently confounded together, yet as soon as I 

 picked up the first specimen of the tree pipit its appearance took my 



