360 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



suffered somewliat in health in Western Ecuador, and will 

 return to Europe with their collections at the close of this 

 year. 



New Birds in the Zoological Society's Gardens. — Some very 

 interesting birds have lately been added to the Zoological 

 Society ^s living collection. Three fine males of the Lesser Bird 

 of Paradise [Paradisea minor) have been brought home from 

 New Guinea by Mr.Kettlewell, of the steam-yacht ' March esa.^ 

 In the Parrot-house is also a fine example of the curious 

 Cochoa viridis of the Himalayas, the first, we believe, that 

 has reached Europe alive. In one of the large bird-cages in 

 the Insect-house are a pair o? Eclectus po/ychloriis (green male 

 and red female), which get on so well together that it is 

 hoped they may take to nesting. In the same building is 

 to be seen a fine specimen of a most remarkable Ground- 

 Cuckoo [Carpococcyx radiatus), Avhicli in gait and habits 

 clearly betrays the Gallinaceous affinities of the Cuculidae 

 predicted of them by Garrod and Eorbes from their internal 

 structure. 



Other birds, not elsewhere to be seen alive, are examples 

 of Zosterops palpebrosus of India and Z. simplex of China, 

 and a specimen of the very singular Polyborine form, Poly- 

 boroides typicus, from West Africa. 



Rochebrune v. Nitzsch. — In the second livraison of vol. viii. 

 of the 'Actes ' of the Linnean Society of Bordeaux (March 

 1884), Dr. A. T. de Rochebrune, Assistant Naturalist at the 

 Museum of Paris, has commenced what promises to be an 

 important memoir on the Birds of Senegambia. We will 

 defer a general notice of this work until its conclusion ; but 

 "we wish to call attention to Dr. llochebrune's chapter on the 

 axillary plume of the biixVs feather in different groups, in 

 which he most positively controverts some of Nitzsch^s dicta 

 on this subject. NitzscVs conclusions on other points of 

 the structure of birds which he examined are so uniformly 

 accurate that it is difficult to believe that he can have made 



