March 19—Anything in the nature of an argument makes an ornithologist quiver with delight; and if he can prove another ornithologist wrong you can hear his shrieks of joy two away: but as no real ornithologist will ever admit that he is wrong...the present case proves that I am no ornithologist. The bomb-Shell burst in our midst was hurled by Marques Hachisuka, a distinguished Japanese ornithologist who has been making a revised list of the birds of Hainan as a result of the occupation of that island, by. the Imperial Japanese Navy. "In studying the Rufoustbecked Shrike from Hainan" he says, "I have found it necessary to name the Yangtsze valley birds, which I propose to call -.Lüius schacht lingulacus...a new sub-Species" This has proved a considerable shock to me for I have, in company with my elders and betters in generations past, called our Redbacked Shrike Lanius shach shach. To be really accurate I should say that Pere David, Styan and other experts whom I have followed called the bird only Lanius schacht (missing out the Second schacht because they did not then recognize the system of naming sub-species) but I now feel certain from details supplied to me by Mr. A. de C. Sowerby, from his collection, that it was a genuine mistake to call our local Shrike "schacht schacht" instead of giving
Same dark, richly coloured, as the a cee name to note tat be is Bat Red-backed Shrike of South Chins. But I fell into another pit digged for me by the excellent Père David: he in his day had seen lighter Coloured birds, just as I have done, and called "them Lanius tephronotus, stating that such birds: were to be seen in Shanghai: I went to the British Museum in London, saw skins of that bird, and took them to be specimens of the many "light coloured" Shrikes to be found in'Shanghai: hence, having carefully measured the skins, I included them in my "Shanghai Birds" under the name of "grey-backed Shrikes" Now Ihave learned that qur local
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.