98 Letters, Announcements, &;c. 



on a skeleton of which Notornis mantelli of Owen was origi- 

 nally found edj must be of a different species. The three 

 specimens of Notornis in the British Museum he considers 

 to be likewise referable to N. hochstetteri. Dr. J. v. Mada- 

 rasz describes and figures a new Tetraophasis (T. szechenyii), 

 obtained by the expedition of Graf Bela Szechenyi in Sze- 

 chuau. The chief article in part 3, for 1885, is an impor- 

 tant memoir on the birds collected by Dr. Platen in 1878 in 

 Southern Celebes, from the pen of Dr. W. Blasius. This 

 contains a mass of important observations on 55 species, and 

 gives figures of Alophonerpes wallacii, Cyrtostomus frenatus , 

 var. nov. plateni, Streptocitta albicollis, S. torquata, and 

 Ptilopus temmincki. 



XIII. — Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



We have received the following letters addressed to the 

 Editors of 'The Ibis:' — 



SiKs, — 'The Ibis"" for January last (pp. 118,119) contains 

 some account of a remarkable discovery by Mr. E. M. Brig- 

 ham as regards the development of the Hoatzin [Opistho- 

 comus cristatus), which is said to possess, when first hatched, 

 two pairs of legs, the anterior pair becoming subsequently 

 metamorphosed into wings by suppression of the digits and 

 exfoliation of the claws. 



It may be of interest to point out that there is some reason 

 for believing that the young of the Hoatzin Avas procured in 

 Brazil, and figured more than two centuries ago by George 

 Marcgrav, who, in the capacity of physician, along with Dr. 

 William Piso, accompanied Prince Moritz of Nassau to Brazil 

 between the years 1637-44. Marcgrav, as is well known, made 

 a special study of the fauna of that country, and collected a 

 number of observations, which were published after his death 

 by his friend Piso, in a joint work entitled ' Historia Natu- 

 ralis Brasilia,' printed in folio at Leiden in 1648. The fifth 

 book of Marcgrav's portion of this work, treating of the birds 

 of Brazil, contains (at p. 219) a figure of a four-footed chick, 

 accompanied by the following remarks : — 



