Letters, Announcements, ^c. 101 



■whose white plumage made their home conspicuous at over 

 two miles^ distance- Pheasants were challenging their rivals 

 or calling to their mates on the hill-side ; in the paddy-fields 

 which lined the narrow valley a few Herons were standing 

 on one leg^ and a pair of Ibises, whose plumage had greatly 

 deepened in tint since autumn, were flushed by the road- 

 ^side/' 



Quails near Chipinng Norton-^-JjOxA Walsingham sends us 

 the subjoined extract from a letter received from the Earl of 

 Ducie, dated Sarsden, Chipping Norton, Oct. 23rd, 1885 : — 



"I write to you to inform you of the unusual influx of 

 Quails in this district this year. 



" Generally, upon this estate, which is of some 8000 acres, 

 I hear of one or two ' bevies ' every year. As I do not shoot 

 Partridges till October, and use no pointers, T rarely see a 

 Quail, though I have killed two or three in the last twenty 

 years well into October. This year my keeper, going out 

 early in September to get a few Partridges, put up, he says, 

 at least thirty Quails in one day. A day or two after he saw 

 several more. I have made inquiry, and find that' Quails 

 have been seen and killed in unusual numbers in the district 

 between Chipping Norton and Oxford. At Cirencester and 

 at Evesham I have evidence of them in a similar quantity. 

 A retired Indian civilian, living a few miles from here, 

 and possessing the reputation of an ornithologist, has had 

 several brought to him by farmers and others wishing to 

 know what they were. Even on my property in the vale of 

 Severn the keeper has killed one. There they are almost 

 unknown. 



" The district of which I write is the upland country of the 

 Oolite, and has the highest July isotherm in the United 

 Kingdom. ^^ 



Progress of Mr. H. 0. Forbes. — We extract from the 

 'Pall Mall Gazette-' the subjoined account of Mr. H. O. 

 Forbes's progress in New Guinea : — 



"The High Commissioner's ship 'Governor Blackall,' 



