240 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, &^c. 



years become quite extinct, having been destroyed by tbe cats 

 which had gone wild and infested the island. But, from a letter 

 addressed by Mr. John C. Williams, H.B.M. Consul for the 

 Navigator Islands, to Mr. G. Sprigg, Secretary of the Acclima- 

 tization Society of Melbourne, we learn that Mr. Williams had, 

 after several years of unsuccessful elForts, managed to procure a 

 single living example of this bird, and was intending to convey 

 it to Sydney when he next visited the antipodean metropolis. 

 Recent letters from Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, who has 

 greatly interested himself in the rediscovery of this bird, also 

 mention that a correspondent of his, who visited the Navi- 

 gator Islands in November last, had ascertained that, although 

 the bird was now totally extinct in Upolu, a few were still to be 

 found in the island of Sawaii, the largest and most mountainous 

 of the group, and that he (Dr. Bennett) had great hopes of being 

 able to procure living specimens for the Zoological Society of 

 London. 



Mr. E. L. Layard has left New Zealand some months since, 

 and returned to his old quarters at Cape Town, where he has 

 received an appointment as one of the British Commissioners for 

 the suppression of the Slave-trade. Mr. Layard has recom- 

 menced his labours in the South African Museum, and just 

 issued the first portion of a catalogue of the collection, relating 

 to the Mammals. We have received from him some very 

 interesting ornithological notes collected in New Zealand and 

 during his voyage home, which we propose to publish in our 

 next Number. 



Another of our Honorary Members, Mr. Edward Blyth, 

 Curator of the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, has 

 just returned to England after more than twenty-one years' 

 residence in Calcutta. We trust that his health, which has 

 suffered much of late years, will be quickly re-established by 

 the change of climate. 



