Letters, Announcements, i^c. 207 



in it, and encouraged me in my first attempts to gain a know- 

 ledge of the ornithology of the new country we were survey- 

 ing. On returning from India in 1870, I made over to the 

 British Museum all the Hornbills that I had collected in the 

 Assam hills, and added to the above list the provisional name 

 adopted for specimen No. 146 c. These Hornbills having 

 been separated from the rest of my collection, this specimen 

 passed out of my sight after it was given over to Mr. G. R. 

 Gray. I am now sorry to find that the original labels have 

 been removed and new ones substituted, a system which must 

 have destroyed the value of a large number of donations to 

 the British Museum, but one, I am glad to say, which is no 

 longer followed. In this instance, to make matters worse, 

 I find Khasi hills converted into Kaisi, the correct habitat 

 being the North Cachar hills, the two districts differing very 

 considerably in their physical features. 



I do not understand how Blyth fell into the error of con- 

 sidering the specimen 146 c to be the '' head in the possession 

 o£ Lord Walden ;'' and what the head he referred to can be 

 I do not know. He may have seen one at Chislehurst, where 

 my collection remained a long time in Lord Tweeddale^s care 

 when I returned to India, and referred it to the bird I de- 

 scribed, and which Jerdon, believing to be new, renamed. 

 Lord Tweeddale has never seen the type of A. austeni ; so 

 that he was not in a position to make any remarks on what 

 Blyth wrote in the list of Burmese birds ; it is also evident 

 that Blyth never saw the skin in the British Museum, which 

 he would have identified with Craniorrhinus corrugatus. 

 Fui'ther examination of tliis specimen, and comparison of the 

 descriptions by Blyth of A. tickelli, and of my own from the 

 living bird, have led me to the conclusion that it is only the 

 young of the species the adult female of which will be found 

 figured in ' The Ibis ' for 1864. I must, however, remark 

 that in this plate the coloration of the lower parts appears to 

 me to be far too red a rufous ; for in the description Blyth 

 gives the colour as '^ ferruginous, rather pale, brightest on 

 throat, dull and clouded with vinous ashy on belly.''' 



We should also take the locality into consideration. Asalu 

 is not by any means beyond the limits of range of A. tickelli, 



