Letters y Announcenients, i>;c. 389 



SiRj — The generic name of the Kagu is variously written 

 {Rhinochetvs, Rhynoch(Btus, Khynochetos, kc), the general 

 supposition being that the latter part of the Avord is derived 

 from %atT^, coma. On referring to the Rev. Zool. 1860, 

 p. 439, where the genus was instituted by J. Verreaux and 

 O. des Mui-s, we find the original writing was Rhynochetos. 

 The derivation is not stated, but from the context there can 

 be little doubt that the term was intended to have been 

 compounded from pk, piv6<;, nasus, and o^ero?, canalis, in al- 

 lusion to the channelled nostrils. It should therefore be 

 ortliographically written Rhinochetus, as in the Revised Cat. 

 of Vert, Zool. Soc. London, p. 305, and generally in P. Z. S. 



Yours &c., 



P. L. SCLATER. 

 11 Hanover Square, London. 

 June 1875. 



Mr. R. B. Sharpe lias sent us the following extracts from 

 a letter addressed to him by Baron A. von Iliigel, who left 

 England last year on a cruise to Australia and the islands 

 of the Pacific : — 



Christcliurch, New Zealand, 

 Feb. lltli, 1875. 



On landing at Melbourne, which I did after a very pleasant 

 eighty-seven days' voyage, I at once began to prepare for my 

 expedition to N.W. Australia, and intended leaving for King 

 George^s Sound by the first mail. But I was stopped by a 

 report that got abroad of H.M.S. 'Pearl' going on a cruise 

 to New Guinea. I had a letter to the commander (Good- 

 enough), and I at once wrote to him at Sidney to ask for a 

 berth on board his ship. But he was, unfortunately, away, 

 treating with the " Fijis," and the result was that I had to 

 wait some six w eeks for an answer. In the mean time I em- 

 ployed my time as best I could in Victoria. I obtained some 

 sixty skins during a fortnight's trip to the Dividing Range, 



and got some good specimens of iJf em«'a and five nests 



At last, however, the answer came, an exceedingly kind 

 letter, but stating, to my no small disappointment, that 



