Letters, Eoetracts, Notices, S^c. 173 



weight in the statement, in Arevalo's compilation, that the 

 red-spotted form had been obtained at Valencia and Malaga. 

 The assumption that " the Crane breeds only very locally 

 and very sparingly in Spain '^ is only borne out in Col. Irby's 

 well-known work with the important qualification that it is 

 ceaseless persecution which is driving the birds from the places 

 wherein years gone by " they used to nest in great nurahers/' 

 Moreover, the only marshes in Spain knoAvn to ornithologists 

 are those of Andalucia, for men go like sheep to the ground 

 discovered thirty years ago, and no one has any idea of what 

 there may be on the Upper and Lower Guadiana. There 

 are a good many crudities in Mr. Whitlock^s criticisms. 



XIV. — Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



We have received the following letters, addressed " to the 

 Editors of ' The Ibis.' " Count Arrigoni Degli oddi's letter 

 was accidentally omitted in our last number, for which we 

 owe him many apologies. 



Sirs, — In the last volume of ' The Ibis ' Mr. Sushkin has 

 described a new Palsearctic Goose under the name of Anser 

 neglectus, from specimens obtained by him in the East of 

 Russia. I beg leave to call your attention to an apparently 

 similar specimen in Count Ninni's collection in the Museum 

 of the city of Venice. On the label it is marked as a 

 ''female, killed in Eebruary, 1890, in our lagoons." The 

 following are the characters that distinguish it from a typical 

 A. segetum: — Bill much more slender, nnder mandible less 

 curved in the middle portion, the nail more curved, the 

 horny teeth small, the light colour on the bill extending 

 beyond the nostril ; white feathers around the frontal 

 angle, and also two white marks at the base of the upper 

 mandible; the colour of the head and neck darker, especially 

 in the hinder parts; upper parts darker, the edges of the 

 dark-coloured feathers of the upper parts and flanks browner ; 

 a little white spot on the chin ; underparts of a darker 

 greyish tint; the white of the lower abdomen also less pure. 



