XXIV.-Letters, Extracts, Notices, &c.

We have received the following letters :

:

Northrepps, 16 December, 1889.

SIR, A short time since, Mr. H. E. Dresser very kindly permitted the Norwich Museum to acquire by exchange a specimen from Jeddah of the Owl described by Mr. Sharpe and figured in 'The Ibis,' 1886, pl. vi., under the name of Bubo milesi.

Mr. Dresser informs me that this specimen has been compared with the type in the British Museum and agrees with it; but I find, on examination, that it also agrees (I think, closely) with the original description of " Otus abyssinicus," given by Guérin-Méneville in the Revue de Zoologie' for 1843, p. 321.

Mr. Dresser has been good enough to refer, at my request, to the plate of Otus abyssinicus in the 'Voyage Abyss.,' Zool. iii. Ois. pl. 3, and writes as follows:-"It is figured without ear-tufts, which is noted in the letterpress as an error, otherwise it would do pretty well for Bubo milesi."

In the accompanying letterpress the wing-measurement of Otus abyssinicus is given as "35 cent." (nearly equivalent to 133 inches), but in the 'Revue de Zool.' no measurements are given.

The following figures relate to the measurements of the wing and tarsus only:

If the type of Otus abyssinicus still exists in Paris, it

would be very desirable that an Arabian specimen of Bubo

milesi should be compared with it; but meanwhile I am disposed to consider Otus abyssinicus and Bubo milesi as one and the same species, which, in that case, ought to stand as Bubo abyssinicus. I am &c.,

J. H. GURNEY.

SIR,-I beg leave to point out that Capt. Shelley's identification of my Estrelda nonnula with Habropyga tenerrima (P. Z. S. 1888, p. 31) is an error. In H. nonnula the groundcolour of the back is brownish olive; in H. tenerrima of Reichenow it is grey, and on this grey there are dark fasciæ not found in H. nonnula.

I believe these two species to be quite distinct, and Dr. Reichenow is of the same opinion.

Bremen, Feb. 15th, 1890.

Yours &c.,

G. HARTLAUB.

Labuan, Borneo,
Jan. 20, 1890.

SIR,-I wish to place on record the occurrence in Borneo of Fuligula cristata (Leach) and of a Phalarope, probably Lobipes hyperboreus (Linn.), which has already been indicated as a probable visitant to Borneo by Count Salvadori. The latter specimen was shot at Baram Point in October, but was too much mutilated for preservation. The Duck was shot at Labuan in October, and identified by comparison with the description in the last edition of Yarrell's 'British Birds.'

Yours &c.,

A. H. EVERETT.

Birds of the Bellenden-Ker Range, Queensland.-Appended to the Report of Mr. A. Meston on the Government scientific expedition to the Bellenden-Ker Range in Northern Queensland, which has recently been presented to the Parliament of Queensland, is a report on the zoology of the expedition by Mr. C. A. De Vis, Curator of the Queensland Museum, Brisbane. The expedition started from Cairns on

the sea-coast on June 20th, 1889, and kept the field ten weeks. The well-known Australian collector Mr. Broadbent was attached to it. It is stated that at the height of 5000 feet (nearly the limit of the height of the range) no change of fauna takes place, some of the most familiar birds of Queensland (such as Pachycephala gutturalis) being met with in numbers on the top of the mountain, and other more local kinds (e. g. Scenopaus dentirostris, Prionodura newtoniana, and Sericornis gutturalis *) having been found at all heights and on the summit. The list of birds

of which specimens were obtained embraces 79 species, amongst which is an Owl, described as new under the name Ninox lurida. Other rare species besides those above mentioned are Cracticus quoyi, Colluricincla boweri, and Gerygone flavida. Nineteen other species are enumerated as observed on Bellenden-Ker by Mr. Broadbent, but not obtained. Mr. Meston also procured a nest and eggs, believed to be those of the remarkable Bower-bird Prionidura newtoniana.

New extinct Swan in New Zealand.-At a meeting of the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, New Zealand, on October 3rd, 1889, Mr. H. O. Forbes, Director of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, described an extinct species of Swan from osteological remains which he had discovered while excavating a cave recently exposed at Sumner, on the estuary of the Heathcote and Avon Rivers, a few miles distant from Christchurch.

The bones discovered consisted of three complete coracoids and the proximal and distal portions of the humerus. They differ very little from those of Chenopis atrata of Australia, except in their greater size. named Chenopis sumnerensis. to have been closed before atrata into New Zealand.

The new species has been The Sumner cave was stated the introduction of Chenopis The extension of the Swans

* A new species lately described by Mr. De Vis in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland from specimens obtained at Herberton by Mr. Broadbent.

to New Zealand in a former epoch was therefore a very interesting fact in ornithology.

The Generic term Calodromas.-In February 1884, Mr. Ridgway proposed to change the generic term Calodromas, employed by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin in 1873 for a genus of Tinamous, into Calopezus, stating that Calodromas was preoccupied, "having been used for a genus of Coleoptera by Goudot, 1832 (Rev. et Mag. de Zool.)."

This suggestion unfortunately escaped my notice, and was not alluded to in 'Argentine Ornithology,' where the species in question is called Calodromas elegans (Argentine Ornithology, ii. p. 214)*.

My attention now having been called to this point, I am not quite sure that I can agree with Mr. Ridgway. The term in question was used in the 'Magasin de Zoologie' for 1832 by Guérin (not by "Goudot in the Revue et Mag. Zool. 1832"), and is there written Calodromus not Calodromas.

As the terms are not quite identical, and as, judging from what Guérin says in his footnote, the derivations are not the same, I see no difficulty in retaining Calodromas.

Had both terms been proposed in the same branch of zoology the case might have been different.

P. L. SCLATER.

Obituary.-GEORGE CAVENDISH TAYLOR, JOSÉ AUGUSTO DE SOUSA, CARL HUNSTEIN, LADISLAS TACZANOWSKI, JOSÉ AREVALO Y BACA, EDWARD THOMAS BOOTH.-We regret, through inadventence, to have hitherto omitted to record the death of Mr. GEORGE CAVENDISH TAYLOR, formerly a member of the B. O. U., and well known to many of us. Mr. Taylor died at his residence, 42 Elvaston Place, Queen's Gate, on the 30th of July last, at the age of 63 years.

The second son of the late Mr. Frederic Farmer Taylor, of Chyknell, Salop, Mr. Taylor passed the first portion of his life

The term was also omitted in Mr. Waterhouse's 'Index Generum Avium,' and although duly mentioned in the 'Zoological Record' for 1884 (Aves, p. 67), was not registered in the Index of New Generic Names to that volume.

as an officer in the 95th Regiment, and served his country in the Crimea and elsewhere. After retiring from the army, he became a director of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, and of other commercial undertakings.

Mr. Taylor was an ardent sportsman and an excellent shot, and from early life was a collector of birds, more especially those killed by his own gun, and a skilful preparer of their skins.

In 1857-58 he visited Honduras in connection with the scheme then afloat for carrying an inter-oceanic railway across that country. In company with the preliminary surveying expedition for the proposed line, he crossed that Republic from Fonseca Bay to Omoa, and made a considerable collection of birds, of which he subsequently published an account in this Journal.

In 1861 Mr. Taylor made an expedition to Florida, of which also an account was given to the readers of 'The Ibis.' One of the specialities of Mr. Taylor's private collection of birds was a series of Ruffs (Machetes pugnax), illustrative of the highly variable plumage of the male of this bird. This series, we are pleased to be able to announce, has been secured by Prof. Flower for the National Collection.

We subjoin a list of Mr. Taylor's ornithological publi

cations.

(1) "Account of a Visit to a Nesting-place of the Frigatebird (Fregata aquila, L.)," Ibis, 1859, p. 150.

(2) "On Birds collected or observed in the Republic of Honduras, with a short account of a Journey across that country from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean," Ibis, 1860, pp. 10, 110, 222, 311.

(3) "Five weeks in the Peninsula of Florida during the spring of 1861, with Notes on the Birds observed there," Ibis, 1862, pp. 127, 197.

(4)

Birds observed during two Voyages across the North
Atlantic," Ibis, 1869, p. 388.

(5) "Ornithological Observations in the Crimea, Turkey, Sea of Azov, and Crete, during the years 1854-55; with Remarks on the Sivash, or Putrid Sea," Ibis, 1872, p. 224.