210 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



Linota exiUpes as a species^ althougli Mr. Seebohm is unable 

 to comprehend it. How, after seeing them both in life, he 

 could confound them, and write such a careless note on 

 them as he has done in ' Siberia in Europe/ footnote, 

 p. 51, I cannot imagine. 



Yours &c., 



W. E. Brooks. 



Science in Indiana. — The Indiana Academy of Science 

 was organized on Dec. 29th, 1885, with the following 

 officers :—D. S. Jordan, M.D., President; J. M. Coulter, 

 Ph.D., J. P. D. John, D.D., Rev. D. R. Moore, Vice- 

 Presidents; Amos W. Butler, Secretary; Prof. O. P. 

 Jenkins, Treasurer; J. N. Hurty, Librarian. Amos W. 

 Butler was appointed Curator of the department of Orni- 

 thology. Mr. Butler read a paper on " The past and 

 present of Indiana Ornithology.^^ 



The Abundance of Quails last year. — Lord Walsingham 

 has sent us the following further communication from the 

 Earl of Ducie (see supra, p. 101), dated Mentone, January 

 12th, 1886 :— 



" I have procured some definite information respecting 

 the Quails, which tends to explain their appearance in un- 

 usual numbers last year. Why they should have been 

 numerous only in Central England I cannot understand. 



" A certain Signer Chiappori, of Genoa and Ventimiglia, 

 who shoots along this coast at the time of migration, reports 

 that Quails did not arrive in 1885 until the 11th May. The 

 legal season for shooting them is very brief, lasting only to 

 May 10, a period which generally covers the time of their 

 stay on this coast. They usually arrive April 27. None 

 were therefore killed in this district last spring. He reports 

 further that none bred in Piedmont, where he usually finds 

 plenty in autumn. A few bred along the sea-coast of the 

 Riviera, an exceptional circumstance. He, and others, re- 



