720 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



the Okovanga River. After being many months in the dry 

 sandy bush-veldt they arrived quite suddenly in N'gami-land, 

 with its wealth of tall papyrus, fine palms, and evergreen 

 trees. The silent wastes of the desert were replaced by 

 teeming masses of birds and animal life of all sorts. Lake 

 there was none, at least not in tlie ordinary sense of the 

 word, but there lay before them a vast swamp bordered on 

 the south by the dry Kalahari, and on the north by a most 

 amazing and intricate system of rivers and a vast expanse of 

 marshes, which are dry in summer, but are inundated with 

 water from the north during the winter. The travellers are 

 busy in collecting birds, mammals, and other animals, and 

 hope to be able to get a complete series of the fishes of Lake 

 N'gami, which are very little known, and are specially 

 required at South Kensington. 



A new Fossil Bird from the Lower Pliocene. — The last 

 issued Part of the ' Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of 

 London (1909, p. 368) contains an account by Mr. W. P. 

 Pycraft of the fossilized remains of a small Passerine bird 

 from Gabbro, near Leghorn. After a detailed description 

 Mr. Pycraft comes to the conclusion that the remains are 

 those of a Pipit (Anthus), and resemble most nearly those of 

 the living species known as Berthelot's Pipit (Anthus 

 bertheloti) of Madeira. 



Assuming that this is correct, Mr. Pycraft proposes to 

 adopt the name of the discoverer — Dr, Bosniaski — as the 

 specific name of this species. 



Anthus hosniaskii was obtained by Dr. Bosniaski from the 

 Lower Pliocene of Gabbro, near Leghorn, a deposit which 

 as yielded many fossils and which is particularly rich in 

 fish-remains. 



The only other remains of Passerine birds from the Lower 

 Pliocene are stated to be a few fragments, representing 

 the genera Corvus and Turdus, from Uousiilon, Perpignan. 



