352 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



No, 2, June 188-4<^ Ibis, }). 350, Ruticilla titys. Wanted, time 

 of day first seen or captured." 



The reason for this query might be that tlie correspondent 

 wished to compare the time witli an occurrence at some otlier 

 contiguous station, or to correlate with it a large " rush " of 

 migrants. 



When one has often a dozen or more such letters to reply 

 to, the time could be reduced by method. 



Yours &c., 



J. A. Harvie-Brown, 



Memher Migration Committee of the Brit. Assoc. 



Bremen, May 8, 1884. 

 Sirs,— As the Editors of ' The Ibis ' (1884, p. 116) express 

 certain doubts in regard to the validity of the newly described 

 species of Ostrich {Struthio mofi/bdophcmes), I may state that, 

 to all who have seen specimens alive, there can be not the 

 slightest doubt that it is a good one. When in Basel 

 (Switzerland) a fortnight ago, I had the pleasure of seeing a 

 flock of twenty-six specimens in the Zoological Garden, depo- 

 sited there by Mr. Carl Ilagenbeck, of Hamburg. There 

 were fifteen males, all adult, and eleven females. Afterwards 

 I saw a pair in the small zoological garden of Mr. Nill at Stutt- 

 gart *. All the males agreed exactly with the characters 

 pointed out by Dr. Ueicheiiow — i. e. the naked parts of the 

 head, neck, thighs, and legs were delicate slate-grey, instead 

 of flesh-red, as in Struthio camelus. A very striking cha- 

 racter in coloration of the naked parts is also that the bill, 

 with the exception of the brownish tip, and the gape, as well 

 as the middle portions of the front of the tibia, are fine pink. 

 As it seemed to me, the species was smaller in size than 

 S. camelus. But whether I may be right in the latter sug- 

 gestion or not, the difference in the coloration of the naked 

 parts is sufficient to distinguish the species at a glance ; and 



* This little garden contains very interesting hybrids (young and full- 

 grownj of Ursus arctos and Ursus maritimus. One old specimen is in 

 the musenni of Stuttofart. 



