Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 507 



collection ; and Mr. J. H. Gurney, Jun., in his * Rambles 

 of a Naturalist' (six months' bird-collecting in Egypt), 

 p. 131, says : — "A fine female was shot on the 22nd of April 

 at Beltisnah. It had been chasing Pigeons, and was resting 

 on a sand-bank. It was the only specimen which we met 

 with in our travels. Canon Tristram has a specimen which 

 was killed somewhere above Cairo by Sir W. Medlycott.'' 



Yours &c., 



Thomas Parkin. 

 Fairseat, High Wickham, Hastings, 

 Aug. 2, 1895. 



Sirs, — I regret exceedingly to find that, by some strange 

 mischance, two or three mistakes have found their way into 

 the paper on the pterylography of the Tinamous which was 

 published in ' The Ibis ' for January last. 



These mistakes were made in connection with the cervical 

 moieties of the spinal and ventral tracts, and to avoid com- 

 plication I will redescribe them in the terms in vogue at the 

 time the paper was written, instead of adopting those sug- 

 gested by me in my latest paper " On the Pterylography of 

 the Hoatzin," published in the July number of this volume. 



The sum of my transgressions is this : that I described 

 under the heading " Pteryla colli lateralis " (p. 2) what is 

 really neither more nor less than the cervical moiety of the 

 Pteryla ventralis. The simplest way of setting this right 

 will be to rewrite, as I have just said, the description of both 

 spinal and ventral tracts. 



Pt. spinalis. — Arising at the nape of the neck, it divides 

 soon afterwards into two branches. Coalescing between the 

 humeral tracts, they soon after again divide, and at the 

 same time increase greatly in width. Just in front of the 

 thigh a branch is sent down to the femoral tract, the main 

 stems of the tract retain their independence for a short 

 distance further, and then fuse at a point roughly corre- 

 spending with a line drawn across the back from the aceta- 

 bulum. The remainder of the tract is now continued back- 

 wards, finally to blend with the pteryla caudoe. 



