280 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



for both this species and the Blackbird ; we ourselves once heard a 

 Blackbird do this in the Zoo grounds, and the curious thing was 

 that it was carrying a worm at the time. Another remarkable 

 Thrush-record, in the March number, quoted from the ' Scottish 

 Naturalist,' is that of a Blackbird and a Song-Thrush feeding on 

 daisy-flowers, in the latter case the subject being a young bird 

 thus fed by its parent. In the June number Mr. R. M. 

 Barrington lists the occurrences of the Common and Black 

 Redstarts at light-stations in Ireland ; of thirty-five Common 

 and eighty Black, twenty-six of the former and thirty-two of the 

 latter were killed striking, the rest being shot, caught, or found 

 dead. The records are interesting, but here again we cannot 

 help feeling colonization is being checked. A nine-page paper 

 opening this number, and thus the new volume, by the authors of 

 the 'Hand-List of British Birds ' (Messrs. Hartert, Jourdain, Ti r e- 

 hurst and Witherby), discloses the fact that after the dismissal of 

 many well-known names in this publication and the introduction 

 of others, in quite a number of cases, further research has shown 

 that the familiar name has got to be restored. Some particular 

 cases are astonishing: the American Bittern is restored to its pre- 

 vious rank as a species, having been degraded to a subspecies of 

 our Bittern in the 'Hand-List,' though it differs not only in colour 

 and pattern of plumage but in note. The Golden-eye Ducks, 

 too, are allowed a genus of their own again, after being lumped 

 with the Pochards in the List, though their real affinities are 

 with the Mergansers. Species and subspecies splitting is bad 

 enough, but lumping can evidently be equally so. In this 

 supplementary paper we are told we must not call the Common 

 Flamingo Phcenicopterus antiquorum any longer, but Phcenicop- 

 teras ruber antiquorum, because it is only a subspecies of the red 

 American Flamingo, differing "only in degree of coloration." 

 This is not so ; both species may be seen at the Zoo alive, and 

 noted to differ in height and proportions (the red bird being 

 shorter and stouter), in colour of beak, and in the shade of the 

 red where both have it, on the wing-coverts. Evidently a good 

 deal of ignorance is needed to manipulate British bird-names in 

 the method approved in Germany and too often elsewhere. 



Ekrata. — P. 240, for Haliatur read Haliastur. 



