Letters, Extracts, and Notices. 143 



to ascertain whether there are any land-birds in the 

 Agalegas, and we hope that Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner and 

 Mr. Foster Cooper, the Naturalists of the new Expedition, 

 will pay special attention to this point. A series of birds 

 from this remote locality will be much appreciated, as we 

 believe that, as regards ornithology, they are quite a terra 

 incognita. 



Breeding of the Screamer in Captivity. — Among the ornitho- 

 logical events at the Zoological Society's Gardens last year 

 few were of greater interest than the breeding of the Crested 

 Screamer (Chauna cristata), which, so far as I know, is the 

 first instance of this bird nesting in Europe, though it is not 

 an uncommon species in Zoological Gardens, and has been 

 represented in the Regent's Park for many years. Two of 

 these birds, of which the sexes are exactly alike in external 

 appearance, paired in the spring of 1904, and eggs were laid 

 in a large nest, made of loose sticks and placed on the ground 

 in the Great Aviary, on the 17th, 19th, and 21st of May. A 

 fourth egg was supposed to have been laid on the 23rd of 

 May, but the keepers did not see it. Three young only 

 were hatched on July oth, after an incubation of about six 

 weeks, in which both the male and the female took part. 

 The chicks, which I saw a few days afterwards, were exactly 

 like young geese in appearance and of a buffy white colour. 

 One of them was trodden on and killed by one of its parents 

 the same day that it was hatched, but the other two throve 

 well, moulted in due course into their full dress, and in 

 October were scarcely distinguishable from adults. It is 

 now still more evident to me that the right position for the 

 Palamedeidse, as maintained by Parker (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1863, 

 p. 411), is in the Order Anseres next to the Anatidte, 

 as they were placed in the Nomencl. Av. Neotr. in 1873. — 

 P. L. S. 



The Bewick Collection, Newcastle. — It will interest lovers 

 of British Birds to know that, as we are informed by the 

 * Museums Journal,' a fine collection of the works of the 



