Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 719 



also tell us what influence age has upon plumage, &c.; 

 where a young bird, the birthplace of which is known, breeds ; 

 whether individuals return to previous nesting-haunts, and 

 whether pairs come together again in successive breeding- 

 seasons. 



Many of the readers of ' British Birds ' are taking 

 the matter up, and it is expected that a large number 

 of birds of all kinds will be " ringed/' The rings are 

 extremely light and do not in any way interfere with the 

 bird's power of flight : all are stamped " Witherby, High 

 Holborn, London/' and bear a distinctive number, which 

 in the smaller sizes is stamped inside the ring. It is 

 hoped that anyone into whose hands a bird so marked 

 should fall will send the bird and the ring (or, if this be not 

 possible, then the particulars of the number on the ring, the 

 species of bird, and the locality and date of capture) to the 

 address above given. 



The Lake-N'gami Expedition. — Two members of the 

 Ruwenzori Expedition (Mr. R. B. Woosnam and the Hon. 

 Gerald Legge) are again in Africa, exploring the little-known 

 country round Lake N'gami. Information of their safe 

 arrival on the 27th of June last at the shores of that lake 

 has been received in a long and interesting letter written to 

 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, but they had a difficult task to get there. 

 They were twice obliged to cross stretches of 120 miles 

 without water, and the oxen and horses were forced to live 

 entirely on sama, a little white water-melon, which was 

 also boiled down in order to cook meat and to make tea. 

 Leaving the railway at Vryburg, in Bechuana-land, they 

 travelled due north through the heart of the Kalahari 

 Desert. Crossing the Molopo River in April, they found it 

 still held a little water, but were told that it would be entirely 

 dry by August. Thence they struck slightly east, to a place 

 called Kakia, just north of the 25th parallel, and passing 

 Kokong, Okwa, and Ghansis, reached Tsau (or Tsao) on 



