Letters, Announcements, t^c. 459 



only an extremely limited iivimbcr of copies of this pamphlet 

 have been printed The one before us is is made up of printer's 

 proofs sent by the author to Mr. Dresser. This is to be 

 regretted, as the chief portion of the paper consists of notes 

 of birds observed and collected by Mr. W. H. Elliott, many 

 of which are interesting, especially those on the singular 

 Alcidse of the North Pacific. In this paper, too, Tr'mya 

 ptilocnemis is described for the first time by Dr. Coues, This 

 species has already to carry a synonym, it having been 

 described by jNIr. Harting, from Mr. Elliott^s specimens sent 

 to him by the Smithsonian Institution, as Trinya gracilis 

 (P.Z.S. 1874, p. 242, Aug. 1st). 



XLV. — Letters, Announcements, S^c. 



The follownug letters, addressed ''To the Editor of 'The 

 Ibis,^ " have been received : — 



Dear Sir, — Allow me to make a few observations upon 

 some of the birds referred to in ' The Ibis ' for April 1874. 



Phyllopneuste BOREALis, Blasius, p. 140. 



Lord Walden of course knows that P. ruagnirostris, Blyth, 

 is exceedingly like P. borealis — so much so, that JNIr. Hume 

 (' Stray Feathers,' i. p. 495) confounded the two. I am 

 anxious to know if Lord Walden is certain in this identifica- 

 tion of No. 79 as P. borealis. 



I examined a few of Mr. Swinhoe's Chinese examples of 

 P. borealis (P. syhicultrix, Swinhoe) in the Indian Museum ; 

 and although of the same size and colour, between the two 

 birds I found the following differences : — 



1. The first primary of P. borealis is very minute, and 

 almost Acrocephalus-\\ke, as in P. sibilatrix; while in P. 

 magnirostris it is of tolerable size and Hj/polais-like, as in 

 H. polyglotta and H. rama. 



2. The 2nd quill of P. borealis is equal in length to mid- 

 way between 5th and 6th, as in P. trochilus ; while in P. 

 magnirostris the 2nd quill is about equal to the 9th, the 

 latter bii'd's wing being more rounded. 



