Letters, A^mowicements , &;c. <38r) 



storm. M. Radde will reach Merv in the course o£ the pre- 

 sent month (May), and will then examine the mountains 

 between the Murghab and Tejend. In July he will return 

 to Askabad via Sarakhs, and then proceed through Khorasan 

 to Meshed. Before his final return to Europe M. Radde will 

 visit Teheran. 



Ml'. H. 0. Forbes in New Guinea. — The last account of 

 Mr. H. O. Forbes in South-eastern New Guinea states that he 

 was in camp at Sogeri^ fifty miles from Port Moresby, and 

 intending to ascend Mount Owen Stanley when the season 

 permitted. 



News of Mr. H. H. Johnston. — Mr. H. H. Johnston has 

 settled himself in Mondole or Mondoli Island, in Ambas Bay, 

 as H.B.M. Vice-Consul for the Cameroons, and sends us a 

 good account of his health and prospects. Writing K\)v'\\ 

 13th, he tells us that he has already found a collector, and is 

 purposing to send him up the Cameroons with a staff of 

 several natives as assistants as soon as possible. The only 

 birds yet obtained on this mountain, so far as we know, are 

 those collected by Sir R. Burton during his ascent in 1861, 

 and described by George R. Gray in the Annals of Nat Hist, 

 for that year (ser. 3, vol. x. p. 443). Where such curious 

 birds as Strobilophagu burtoni occur we may reasonably 

 expect further novelties. 



Rediscovery o/Platycercus unicolor. — Captain F. W. Hutton 

 writes to us that a specimen of Platycercus unicolor, A igors 

 (P. Z. S. 1831, p. 24), has been received at the Christchurch 

 Museum, from Antipodes Island, off the coast of New 

 Zealand. This species was based by Vigors on a single 

 specimen living in the Zoological Society's Gardens in 1831, 

 and subsequently transferred to the British INIuseum. For 



SER. V. VOL. IV, 2 E 



