120 Letters, Announcements, ^c. 



We venture to invite the attention of our readers in various 

 parts of the world to this subject. The cause of Shrikes' 

 shambles is surely not a thing " past finding out." 



IX. — Letters, Announcements, &;c. 

 "We have received the following letters addressed " To the 



Editor of ' The Ibis ' " :— 



Simlah, 3 Sept. 1868. 



Sir,— In 'The Ibis' for 1868 (page 79) Mr. Beavan gives 

 Corydalla richardi as occurring at Simlah, and remarks that the 

 specimens procured by him agreed well enough with Colonel 

 Tytler's, Now, on examining these last, I find them to be 

 examples of Agrudroma sordida. Some twenty years ago Mr. 

 Blyth gave Col. Tytler an Agrodroma sordida ticketed " Atithus 

 richardi " — the tickets of the two species, I suppose, having got 

 exchanged owing to the ministering care of some intelligent native, 

 and Mr. Blyth, before giving the specimen, having failed to see 

 that all was right. This circumstance misled Colonel Tytler; other- 

 wise a single glance at the hind claw would have been sufficient 

 to separate the two species. In C. richardi it is from '6 to '95 in. 

 in length, and nearly straight. In A. sordida it is about '35 in. 

 long, and moderately curved. I have never obtained C. richardi 

 in the neighbourhood of Simlah. It breeds, I know, in Ladak, 

 but it has not yet occurred in any of the collections made for 

 me at Simlah and in its immediate neighbourhood, although 

 in the cold season I have often procured it on the plains. 



Further on (page 166) Mr. Beavan says that, according to 

 Col. Tytler, Corvus intermedius breeds at Simlah in July and 

 August ; but the Colonel tells me that this is a mistake, as he 

 never named those months as the breeding-time. As a matter 

 of fact the species lays in May and June ; and by the 10th of 

 July this year the young had all flown, and every nest (and I had 

 nearly a hundred searched) was empty. 



In the same volume (page 306) Herr von Pelzeln describes 

 a Falcon from Kotegurh, under the name of " Falco communis, 

 Gm.'', by which designation I suppose (though I am not sure) 

 him to mean the species generally known as Falco peregrinus ^' . 



• [Many ornithologists, it is true, use the name F. cointnunis for F. 



