3-18 Letters, Announcci/ie/iti), ^t. 



News of Mr. Blanford. — Mr. W. T. Blanford writes from 

 Jacobabad (Dec. 29, 1881) :— 



" I have had so much hard marching that I have not had 

 time to collect. Of course I failed to get at the Quetta 

 Vole. It was quite the wrong season to obtain any thing 

 there: it was very cold; one night the thermometer went 

 down to 20° Fahr. ; and all the trees were leafless. lu spring 

 and summer Quetta must be a very pretty place — very 

 Persian, of course, in appearance. 



" I have rarely seen Choughs so common anywhere — all 

 Pyrrhocorax graculus, of course ; but in general birds were 

 rather scarce, and I had not time to look for them. 



" The country is very quiet. I came down with a very 

 small escort j and, but for the look of the thing, I believe, so 

 far as I can learn, that escorts are unnecessary, both on the 

 Bolan and Harnai. The Marri country is so quiet that I 

 was very nearly going into the heart of it with a small party 

 of Harris under one of the chiefs. I have just been through 

 part of the Bhugti hills in the same way, and am now off to 

 traverse the remainder of them. Then I go up the western 

 frontier of the Punjab, west of the Indus, to the neighbour- 

 hood of Bunnoo ; and that, I suppose, will occupy me until 

 it begins to be warm, and it is time to go into station." 



A more recent letter from Mr. Blanford (March 18th) 

 announces his arrival at Dera Ghazi Khan, on the Punjab 

 frontier, where he was unfortunately laid up by a bad attack 

 of fever.— P. L. S. 



Dr. Finsch's Explorations. — We have received a letter from 

 Dr. Finsch dated Thursday Island, Torres Straits, on the 

 24th December last. Dr. Finsch had been for a short ex- 

 cursion on Cape York, and had collected examples of about 

 seventy-five species of birds, amongst which were specimens 

 of Ptilorhis alberti in different stages of plumage. At the 

 date of his letter he was intending to leave for Port Moresby 

 in the ' Alice Meade,' a small schooner of 14 tons, and was 

 arranging to pass four months in New Guinea. A ninth orni- 

 thological letter (on New Zealand), which accompanies Dr. 

 Finsch's communication, will be given in our next Number. 



