Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ^c. 231 



various Coleoptera ; and in land-shells we have done very well. 

 Our geological collection has been satisfactory, as fossils have 

 been found everywhere, but all of the same character, — I think 

 triassic. Next week we propose to start for the south and east 

 sides of the Dead Sea, as far up as Kerak. Of course we shall 

 have but little opportunity of naturalizing here ; but it will be 

 a great success to be able to get there at all. 



" With the exception of Cypselus galileensis, which we cannot 

 find, we have already secured specimens of all the species which 

 have been mentioned by former travellers in Palestine. 



"P.S. — January 7th. I have shot before breakfast this morning 

 two Hirundo rupestris ; and in the rocks, six of a new species of 

 Swallow, very like it, but nearly black, and twice its size ; also 

 three specimens of a bird with the habits and actions of a Red- 

 start, but lead-coloured body and jet-black tail. We added, 

 today, to our list a hare, two specimens of a marmot, and a 

 Pterocles senegalensis (?) ." 



Subsequent letters from Mr. Tristram announce the return of 

 the party to Jerusalem in the beginning of February, and that 

 a selection of the most noticeable objects from the bird-collection 

 had been despatched to the " Editor of the Ibis," by the hands 

 of Mr. Medlycott, who was leaving the party. The number of 

 skins collected up to that time amounted to about 750. About 

 the 21st of the month they were intending to leave Jerusalem 

 again for the Sea of Galilee and Land of Bashan — an excursion 

 that would probably take them about two months. In the next 

 Number of this Journal we hope to be able to give our readers 

 some account of the principal novelties contained in Mr. Tris- 

 tram^s collection. 



Herr v. Pelzeln mentions, in a letter from Vienna, that the 

 Imperial Zoological Cabinet had lately acquired, through one of 

 the Catholic missionaries in the Bari Negro-land, in Central 

 Africa, a specimen of the interesting Courier [Hemerodi^omus 

 cinctus) figured in the 5th volume of ^The Ibis^ (pi. 1). 



