PALLAS' 8 WILLOW WABBLEB IN NORFOLK. 9 



with the trivial name of " Dalmatian Regulus," commemorative 

 of the locality of its origin. Mr. Gould's words are as follows : 

 — " A single specimen of this interesting little bird has been sent 

 to us by the Baron de Feldegg, of Frankfort, to whom our 

 acknowledgments are due .... for this instance of his liberality 

 in consigning to our care .... a bird probably unique in the col- 

 lections of Europe." The only history of the bird which Mr. 

 Gould was able to obtain was that written on the label attached 

 to it by De Feldegg, as follows : — " I shot this bird, which on 

 dissection proved to be a male, in Dalmatia in the year 1829' ! 

 Mr. Gould further adds that he named the species modestus in 

 allusion to its chaste plumage, as he could not find that it was 

 known to German ornithologists. 



The next we hear of the " Dalmatian Regulus " is in a com- 

 munication to the ' Annals of Natural History ' (vol. ii., Dec, 

 1838, p. 310), in which the late John Hancock, of Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, states that on Sept. 26th, 1838, he shot, on the banks near 

 Hartley, on the coast of Northumberland, a bird which " corre- 

 sponds exactly with Gould's Regulus modestus," and claims the 

 species as British. His observations on the manners and ap- 

 pearance of the bird, which are as follows, are interesting : — 

 " Its manners, as far as I had an opportunity of observing them, 

 were so like those of the Golden-crested Wren that at first I mis- 

 took it for that species. It was continually in motion, flitting from 

 place to place in search of insects on umbelliferous plants, and 

 such other herbage as the bleak banks of the Northumberland coast 

 affords. Such a situation could not be at all suited to the habits 

 of this species, and there can be little doubt that it had arrived at 

 the coast previous to or immediately after its autumnal migra- 

 tions." Thus the " Dalmatian Warbler " came to be regarded 

 prematurely, as will be seen, in the light of a straggler to our 

 shore, and was for a time duly accepted as such. 



"Meanwhile," to quote Prof. Newton in Yarrell's 'British 

 Birds' (vol. i. p. 443), "it was shown in 1840, by Count Keyser- 

 ling and Prof. Blasius (Wirbelth. Eur. p. lv), that Mr. Gould's 

 Regulus modestus was no new species at all, but one described 

 many years before by Pallas," as above mentioned ; this, how- 

 ever, of course did not remove the species from the European 

 avifauna, but only cancelled Mr. Gould's name in favour of that 



