348 Mr. H. Seebohm on the Ornithology of Sibei'ia. 
the primaries which are more or less white. M. lugens may 
always be recognized by some of the secondaries being white 
across both webs, and frequently one or two of them are pure 
white throughont. The amount of white on the primaries 
varies very much. In summer this species comes very near 
M. maderaspatantty having a black back, and the white on 
the head being confined to the forehead and supercilium. 
On the average M. lugens is a smaller bird than M. fnaderas- 
patana; but large skins of the former species measure more in 
length of wing than small skins of the latter species. In M. 
maderaspatana the black on the head comes down in a peak to 
the base of the bill. M. lugens has a pure white forehead, 
the black on the head not approaching within half an inch of 
the base of the bill. This appears, however, not to be a per¬ 
fectly stable character, as I have a skin in my collection of 
the last-named species from Hakodate, in which the black 
of the forehead comes down in a peak to the base of the bill, 
as though a not very remote ancestor of this individual had 
migrated to India instead of China for the winter, and had 
there intermarried with one of his cousins, as our friends the 
Crows are in the habit of doing. In winter M. lugens comes 
very near to ikf. ocularis. Both species have then grey backs, 
black heads, a gorget of black on the throat, and a black line 
passing from the base of the bill through the eye, and joining 
the black at the back of the neck. M. ocularis is, however, 
a grey-backed Wagtail, both summer and winter, and has a 
grey shoulder; whereas M. lugens loses the black on the back 
in winter, but retains it on the shoulder the whole year. 
Independently of these minor differences, the amouut of white 
on the primaries and secondaries of M. lugens serves to distin¬ 
guish it easily at all seasons of the year. 
The geographical distribution of this species, so far as I 
have been able to ascertain it, from the examination of well- 
authenticated skins, appears to range from Kamtchatka to 
Japan in summer, and in winter along the coast of China and 
the opposite islands, Formosa, &c. I can find no evidence of 
its having been found further west. The skins in DresseFs 
collection, collected by SevertzofF in Turkestan (Ibis, 1876, 
