Letters, Announcements, S^c. 525 



shot was a straggler from Falassan, from which island I 

 think it has been recorded. A day or two previously I 

 obtained a specimen of Orthor'haniphus magnirostris out of a 

 flock of five at Cape Scinpangmengaio. This species is 

 marked with a query in Salvadori^s work. I compared the 

 specimen with Gould^s description. 



Yours faithfully, 

 Labuan, Borneo. A. EvERETT. 



July 15, 1886. 



P.S. — It is said by natives that Parrots^ similar to those 

 found in tlie Philippines {Tanygnathus or Prioniturus ?), occur 

 on the Mautanaui Islands, a group of coral islets about 

 18 miles olf the N.W. coast of Borneo. 



Sirs, — There is so much with which I am disposed to agree 

 in my friend Mr. Seebohm^s speculations on the genesis and 

 distribution of species of birds, that although I have for 

 some time felt doubtful whether his views as to the effects of 

 the Glacial epoch are warranted by known palaeontological 

 data, I have not hitherto attempted to criticise his conclu- 

 sions. In previous papers, for instance in those on Cursorius 

 and Scohpax (antea, pp. 121, 141), and also, if my memory is 

 correct, in some earlier writings, the view advocated by 

 Mr. Seebohm has been that the differentiation of the species 

 belonging to a genus, or to a section of a genus, dates from 

 some part of the Glacial epoch. In his last paper on Himan- 

 topus, however, a very much greater change within the same 

 limited geological time is advocated, and a conclusion is 

 adopted which appears to me very startling and, as I think 

 I shall show, quite untenable. This conclusion (p. 226) is, 

 that '^ the couple of hundred species and subspecies of birds 

 which compose the family Charadriidse " are " the variously- 

 modified descendants of a species of wader which lived on the 

 shores of the north polar basin some time before the close of 

 the Glacial epoch, ^^ 



It is manifest from the context, coupled with the remarks 

 on the family Charadriidse at p. 122, that the author of the 



