Letters, Extracts, Notices, &;c. 407 



minary paper Avas, liowever, completed before we had the 

 pleasure of seeing the first of Mr. Grant^s very interesting 

 contributions to our knowledge of Philippine ornithology. 

 Our final paper has been in the hands of the Minnesota 

 Academy for some months, and we beg to assure Mr. Grant 

 that he could not possibly feel half the disgust over the 

 delay in the publication of our results that we have felt 

 ourselves. Had the matter been under our own control we 

 venture to say that no one would have experienced any 

 annoyance from our slowness. 



Yours ik,c., 



Dean C. Worcester. 

 Frank S. Bourns. 



Note on Xenicus insularis. — The bird described and figured 

 under this name in the last number of ' The Ibis ' (above, 

 p. 236, PI. VII.) is identical with Mr. Rothschild's Traversia 

 lyalli, Bull. B. O. C. no. xxii. p. x, and above, p. 269. There 

 can be no question that the latter name has precedence in 

 point of date of publication, but Sir W. Buller's description, 

 together with a specimen of the bird for illustration, was 

 received by the Editors in this country and was in their 

 hands before Mr. Rothschild's communication was made 

 to theB. O. C. 



Recent Ornithological Expeditions. — Mr. E. Lort Phillips, 

 F.Z.S., accompanied by Mrs. Lort Phillips, returned to his 

 old quarters in Somaliland in January last, and made a 

 select but most interesting collection of birds, embracing 

 amongst other rarities examples of a new Blackbird and a 

 new Crow *. 



Col. Yerbury, F.Z.S., went to Aden in January last, and 

 in the course of two months' collecting in the interior 

 succeeded in settling several questions relative to its birds, 

 which had been left unsolved in his paper on this subject 

 (Ibis, 1886, p. 11), and in that of Lieut. Barnes (Ibis, 1<S9;3, 



» See Bull. B. 0. C. above, p. 383. 



