Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/35

Rh 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 collections 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 communication 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 "corresponds exactly with Gould's Regulus modestus," and claims the species as British. His observations on the manners and appearance 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 mistook 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 migrations." 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 Keyserling 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, however, of course did not remove the species from the European avifauna, but only cancelled Mr. Gould's name in favour of that