Vol. VII. 



1907 



1 All Ex-Victoyian Collector's Expevicnce. 35 



I stood in, and seeing that towing was too hot work to wear a 

 coat, which I left in one of the boats, I even lost this. For 

 four days I was in shirt sleeves, which is not exactly a warm 

 feeling on these early autumn nights. Lost our best rifles and 

 guns too, and best part of ammunition. But we persevered after 

 re-equipping at the stores connected with the Salmon-fishing 

 Company at the mouth of the river, and finally, after prodig- 

 iously hard work, each man having nearly a hundredweight on 

 his back to carry over the roughest of ground — impenetrable 

 timber and scrub, as well as tundra — we secured our beasts. 

 The never-to-be-forgotten grandeur of the scenery and superb 

 sunsets, unsurpassed by anything I had seen elsewhere, fell flat. 

 They were not properly appreciated on account of the hardships 

 we endured in the hunt — it was all toil. The season being well 

 advanced (October), it was advisable to make our trail before 

 being caught in the grip of the winter, which sets in very soon, 

 and so we turned the head of our schooner back. Again we 

 got nearly wrecked, and thought it was our last hour, on Cape 

 Elizabeth, in a gale, in which the strong current drove us rapidly 

 on to the rocks, where so many craft have been lost before. 

 However, we got off safely, and only just in time, and reached 

 Kodiak, where we had to wait a week for a steamer. The pre- 

 vious one, the Oregon, went down, and so did the one following 

 us, as we learnt when in New York. 



But we were to experience a frightful gale yet before getting 

 to Seattle, 14 days' steaming, and things looked very queer at 

 one time. But what a revelation after the storm, in a clear 

 atmosphere, along the mighty ranges of Mount St. Elias and into 

 Icy Bay, up the Skagway, into hundreds of miles of glaciers 

 down to a sea blocked with icebergs, and then, after Juneau, the 

 beautiful forest-clad inside passage of the British Columbian 

 coast — a fit finale to a turbulent holiday excursion of seven 

 months, with not an hour's illness, and except bruises I feel 

 none the worse, thank God ! 



New Variety of Zosterops. 



By Dr. George Horne, Melbourne. 



About eighteen months ago Miss Bowie had in her aviaries a 

 grey Zosterops, or White-eye. Unfortunately it died, and was 

 destroyed by a pair of Amherst Pheasants. 



Last month we were fortunate enough to obtain another 

 specimen from Morang (Victoria), where the bird-catcher tells 

 me he has often seen them. It forms a marked contrast to 

 Z. arrulescens — the olive-yellow being replaced by grey. The 

 markings on the primaries arc different and the abdomen 



