513 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



complete list of the birds of that colony, and incorporated 

 into it references to the most recent authorities on its birds. 

 A few notes are added to complete the history of some of the 

 species. 



Besides the birds of New Zealand, ten species from localities 

 in the Southern Ocean other than New Zealand are men- 

 tioned separately, plates of all of them being given. Two of 

 these were published long ago. The remaining eight are all 

 from Mr. Wolf's pencil. The colouring of these, we regret 

 to sec, is not what it shoulgl be, this work having evidently 

 been placed in the hands of an inexperienced person. 



To Mr. Jauson, the publisher, zoologists are indebted for 

 bringing this work into its present state. Its actual comple- 

 tion is now no longer possible ; for numerous drawings by Dr. 

 Hooker, and the mass of materials collected by Sir James 

 Ross himself, remain unnoticed. The former still exist in 

 Dr. Hooker's possession ; but the latter, we understand, have 

 long since perished from neglect. A less ambitious aim at 

 its outset in the scope of the ' Zoology of the Erebus and 

 Terror ,■* might have brought all these materials to light, 

 to the exclusion, perhaps, of such portions of the work as 

 the ' Birds of New Zealand / still we should have had a record 

 of objects far less accessible at the present time than much 

 that is included ; moreover the contents of the work would 

 have strictly answered to its title, which, as they stand, they 

 do not. 



XLVIII. — Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



The following letters, addressed " To the Editor of ' The 

 Ibis,' " have been received : — 



Sir, — On examining the collection of nocturnal Accipitres, 

 in the Australian Museum, with a view to their classification, 

 I noticed, under the name of Strix delicatula, a fine speci- 

 men of Sti'ix Candida, of Tickell, which had been shot near 

 Sydney; but when, or by whom, is not mentioned. The fa- 

 cial rufl' and disk of this specimen are of a snowy white, ex- 



