104 Notices, Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, ^c. 



larger and more lightly coloured, and always has the secondaries 

 widely tipped with very pale ashy, nearly white. The adult has 

 the tail black, without any trace of white bars. /. plumbea has 

 always (I believe) transverse white bars on the tail, and the tips 

 of the secondaries not marked as in /. mississippiensis, but uni- 

 form. It is also smaller; and specimens are generally much 

 more darkly coloured than in /. mississippiensis, especially on the 

 under parts, though I have seen one or two that were nearly as 

 light, and had the head nearly as pale. There are transverse 

 bars on the tail in all specimens I have seen of /. plumbea. 

 There are six specimens of /. mississippiensis in the Academy's 

 collection, including Alexander Vrilson's original. Three of 

 these ( c? ? et juv.) are from New Mexico, obtained by Dr. 

 Woodhouse, and two are without labels. Four examples of 

 /. plumbea are all from South America/' 



It is curious that all Mexican Ictinice which we have seen (col- 

 lected by Salle, Boucard, &c.) have belonged to the /. plumbea, 

 of which there is also a specimen in the British Museum, said 

 to be from North America. Of /. mississippiensis there is one 

 specimen in the same collection, agreeing with Mr. Cassin's dif- 

 ferential characters. 



We hear of several important additions to Ornithological lite- 

 rature in progress at the present moment. M. 0. DesMurs is 

 engaged on a ' Traite d^Oologie/ being a general work on that 

 interesting subject. Dr. Hartlaub, of Bremen, is occupied on a 

 Synopsis of the Ornithology of Madagascar, in extension of his 

 * Gegenwartiger Standpunkt der Ornithologie Madagascars,' 

 published in D'Alton and Burmeister's ' Zeitung fiir Zoologie, 

 Zootomie, und Palseozoologie ' in 1848, and has met with several 

 rich sources of new materials. Professor Schlegcl, of Leyden, has 

 just completed a review of the genus Corvus, with figures, for the 

 Society ' Natura artis Magistra' of Amsterdam; and Sir William 

 Jardine and Mrs. Hugh Strickland are preparing for })ubIication 

 a further portion of the late lamented Mr. H. E. Strickland^s 

 Ornithological Synonyms. 



