650 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



above-mentioned sheet of water in the spring of this year 

 (1905), each of which pairs bred at that season, and I saw 

 one of the nests on April 16th. It contained five eggs in an 

 advanced state of incubation. They were embedded in dead 

 weed in such manner as to lead me to the opinion that the 

 covering had not been so recently applied as when the 

 female left the nest on being approached, and that, coupled 

 with other experiences, the eggs of this species remain 

 covered during incubation. Three chicks resulted from this 

 clutch, which were all brought up, after which the parent- 

 birds nested again, and on August 24th I saw one of them 

 accompanied by a young bird about a quarter-grown — the 

 representative of a second brood of the year. 



I am, Sirs, yours &c, 

 High Ackworth, Pontefract, Walter B. Arundel. 



26th August, L905. 



Report of the South African Museum. — In the c Report of 

 the South African Museum' for 1001, which has been 

 recently presented to the Parliament of Cape Colony, the 

 Trustees give a generally favourable account of the progress 

 of their Institution, though they " regret to state that, 

 owing to the restrictions of expenditure necessitated by the 

 financial depression, it has not been possible to proceed with 

 the contemplated additional wing to the .Museum." But a 

 new room, to he devoted to the exhibition of Insects, has 

 been Furnished and will shortly be opened. The specimens 

 of birds added to the Museum in 1904, as we are told by 

 Mr. \V. L. Sclater, the Director, were 473 in number, 

 of which 33 were of species new to the Collection. Amongst 

 them was a scries of 170 skins from the vicinity of Zumbo 

 on the Zambesi, a district as yet comparatively little worked, 

 presented by Dr. Stochr* of the Geodetic Survey. 



In conjunction with the Tring Museum, the Director ob- 

 tained permission to send an Italian Collector and Naturalist, 



* Dr. Stoehr's name was erroneously given as "Stocher" in the 

 ' Bulletin' of the B. O. C. (xv. p. 68), in reference to the specimen of 

 Eutolmaetus spilogaster which he sent tn the South African Museum 

 from this district. 



