Letters, Announcements, ^c. 489 



by Blyth as from the Himalayas. From that day to this 

 this species has been a constant source of vexation and dis- 

 quietude to every Indian ornithologist. None of us could 

 make out what the species was; and under these circum- 

 stances there was no want of politeness, according to English 

 idiom, involved in speaking of it as a ' wretched species.' 



" I have on many occasions acknowledged in the most ex- 

 plicit terms the great obligation under which your valuable 

 Avritings, especially your * Uccelli di Borneo/ have laid me, 

 and I have often expressed the high admiration which I felt 

 for the admirable ornithological work which you have done, 

 and I should be much grieved should you retain any feelings 

 of displeasure in regard to the little joking paragraph to which 

 you seem to have taken such serious objection. 



" In order to prevent the possibility of the miscarriage of 

 this fourth letter, I take the precaution of registering it. 

 " I remain, 



*' Dear Count Salvadori, 

 '' Youi's most sincerely, 



'' {Signed) A. O. Hume.'' 



A copy of the original Russian edition of Prjevalsky's work 

 on Mongolia and the Tangut country* (of which we spoke 

 above, p. 387) is now in the library of the Zoological Society. 

 The zoological portion is in vol. ii., pubhshed at St. Peters- 

 burg in 1876. The species of birds figured are as follows : — 



Tab. ix. fig. 1. Calliope tschehaiewi. 

 2. Ruticilla alasclianica. 

 X. Merula kessleri. 

 xi. fig. 1. Onychospiza taczanowskii. 



2. Montifringilla {Tyrgilauda) ruficoUis. 

 xii. Carpodacus rubidlloides. 

 xiii. Carpodacus dubius. 

 xiv. Pyiirhospiza longirostris. 



* The Russian title is ' Mongolia i Strana Tangutov Trekhyetnee Put- 

 esliestvil v Vostoclinoi Nagornoi Azii,' i. e. Mongolia and the coiuitry of 

 the Tanguti — a three years' journey in the mountains of Eastern Asia. 



