Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, 6)C. 4:7 \ 



specimens of the celebrated Balceniceps rex and its eggs. He 

 informs us that this bird is met with on the upper part of the 

 White Nile, 4° north of the Equator, where the country is low 

 and flat, being intersected by numerous branches of the river, 

 and covered with vast reedy marshes, which are overflowed in 

 the wet season. The Balceniceps is here seen among the reeds, 

 or stationed stork-like in shallow water, on the watch for fishes, 

 upon which it principally subsists. It makes a large and untidy 

 nest among the reeds. The eggs are two in number. The speci- 

 mens brought by Mr. Petherick are of a dirty white, and covered 

 with a chalk-like epidermis. They are of a broad oval, rather 

 tapering towards the small end, measuring 4 inches by 3'1. 

 The Arabs call this bird Abou makoub — the father of the shoe, 

 in allusion to its enormous shoe-like bill. 



This account differs in several particulars from that given by 

 M. Jules Verreaux in the ' Edinburgh New Philosophical Maga- 

 zine ' (n. s. vol. iv. p. 101 et see/.), and there can be no doubt that 

 M. Verreaux was misinformed by his correspondent as to the 

 position of the nest, nature of the food, and colour of the eggs. 



The following letter relates to the occurrence of Pallas's Sand- 

 grouse [Syrrhaptes jjaradoxus) in Norfolk. No doubt it was one 

 of the same flock that was observed near Tremadoc in Wales on 

 the 9th of July, as recorded in ' The Zoologist,' and of which 

 one was obtained, and is now in the Derby Museum at Liver- 

 pool. Through the kindness of Mr. Leadbeater, we had our- 

 selves an opportunity of examining the present specimen, which 

 was a bird in fine plumage, and more darkly banded on the 

 breast than is represented in the plate given in Gray and 

 MitchelPs 'Genera' (vol. iii. pi. 134). The native country of 

 this Sand-grouse is the barren steppes of the Kirghiz Tartars ; 

 and I am not aware of any authentic instance of its previous 

 occurrence in Europe. It was first described by Pallas in his 

 'Travels' (vol. ii. App. p. Ill), and again in his 'Zoographia 

 Rosso- Asiatica' (vol. ii. p. 74). A second species of this pecu- 

 liar form has of late years been discovered in Ladakh, and is 

 figured in Mr. Gould's ' Birds of Asia,' part ii., under the name 

 of Syrrhaptes tibetanus. While agreeing with the type-species 



