Letters, Aiinouncements, iSfc. 353 



as these characters are shown in a large number of speci- 

 mens to be constant, I see no reason for not admitting this 

 form of Ostrich as a distinct species. It has in every respect 

 as much right to stand as a species as, for instance, Rhea 

 macroi'hyncha, Scl.^ or Dromceus irroratus, Bartlett. 



Struthio molybdophanes has been sent from the Somali 

 countr}^ by the indefatigable collectors of Mr. Carl Hagen- 

 beck, the well-known dealer of Hamburg, to whom science 

 is indebted for many new and interesting animals introduced 

 into the European market. Mr. Hagenbeck^s latest expe- 

 ditions to the Somali country have been especially fruitful. 

 When in Hamburg last year, I had the pleasure, in a collec- 

 tion of animals just arrived from the Somali country, of seeing 

 an example of a new species of Ass [Equus) and two new 

 Antelopes. 



Yours &c., 



O. FiNSCH. 



Zoological Museum, Turin. 

 June lOtb, 1884. 



Sirs, — More than a year has elapsed since, having lost 

 the use of my right arm nnd hand, 1 have been obliged to 

 postpone to a better time the publication of the Introduction 

 to my ' Ornitologia della Papuasia e delle Molucche,' which 

 I hope to bring forward some day. In the meanwhile I am 

 watching with great interest whatever appears relating to 

 Pa]3uan ornithology. 



Among the papers recently published I wish to offer a few 

 remarks first on part vii. of the " Contributions to the 

 Zoology of New Guinea,^^ by Mr. Ramsay (Pr. Linn. Soc. 

 N. S. W. viii. pp. 15-29, June 1883). In this paper, already 

 noticed in ^ The Ibis/ 1884, p. 210, Mr. Ramsay describes 

 several species as new. 



(1) Poecilodryas sylvia, p. 19. Evidently this is the bird 

 which, in the 'Abstract^ of the Proc. Linn. Soc. N, S. W., 

 31st January, 1883, p. 3, appeared as Poecilodryas melanoleuca, 

 and I have no doubt that this is the bird described by me as 



