178 Letters, Extracts, Announcements, S^c. 



29. White's ' Cameos from the Silver -Land.' 



[Cameos from the Silver-Land, or the Experiences of a Young Natu- 

 ralist in the Aj-^entine Republic. By Ernest William "WTiite. Vol. I. 

 8vo. London: 1881.] 



This work^ by a naturalist well known to many of us, com- 

 mences with several chapters of general remarks upon the 

 Argentine Republic^ in which a variety of useful information 

 is given. The author then gives an account of his visit to 

 Cordova and Mendoza, in which several passing allusions will 

 be found to birds^ to the study of which Mr. White is spe- 

 cially devoted'^. At San Juan, under the Andes, in the home 

 of a medical gentleman, Mr. White 'Svas grieved to be the 

 witness of a literary sacrilege " such as he never before beheld. 

 " The floor of the drawing-room was strewn with the wreck 

 of Gould's magnificent work on the Toucans ; and I trembled 

 lest that on the Trochilidaj, which was at hand in a book- 

 case, should share the same fate : these splendid tomes, the 

 gift of well-known English ornithologists from the West 

 Indies on their visit to San Juan, leaving their natural use, 

 had degenerated into nursery playthings,''^ 



XIV. — Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



We have received the following letters addressed to the 

 Editors of ' The Ibis ' :— 



Dresden, 16th July, 1881. 



R. Zoological Museum. 

 Sirs, — Perhaps the news would interest the readers of 

 ' The Ibis ' that a Sarcorhamphus gryphus in the Dresden 

 Zoological Gardens has lately hatched two young ones in 

 eight weeks and four days. This happened in the Zoological 

 Society of London^s Gardens, if I am rightly informed, in 

 six weeks two days, a hen hatching the eggs in the latter 

 case. 



Yours &c., 



A. B. Meyer. 



* Cy. Ibis, 1881, p. 599. 



