Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 635 



Russia, iloumania, Hungary, Austria, Prussia, and Heligo- 

 land, consult Orn. Monatschr. xxxiii. no. 7, and Orn. Jahrb. 

 xix. 3 & 4, p. 146.— Edd.] 



Ornithological Works in progress. — We have much pleasure 

 in announcing that our fellow-member, Mr. Gregory M. 

 Mathews, is preparing a new work on the Birds of Australia. 

 Since Gould^s ' Handbook ' was published in 1865, great 

 progress has been made in our knowledge of the subject, 

 thanks to the labours of many local ornithologists, Ramsay, 

 North, Campbell, and the Western Australian collectors, the 

 results of whose labours have been chronicled in the ' Emu.' 



Mr. Mathews, as a native of Australia, appeals to all the 

 ornithologists of that country to aid him in making his work 

 as perfect as possible. Every contribution will be fully 

 acknowledged, and while the Author hopes that he can do 

 justice to his subject, thanks to Dr. Bowdler Sharpe and 

 Mr. Walter Rothschild, who have promised him all facilities 

 of study at the British Museum and at the Tring Museum 

 respectively, he feels that it is on the support of his country- 

 men that the success of his venture depends. We therefore 

 add our appeal to the Australian ornithologists to help 

 Mr. Mathews in the great task that he has undertaken. 



Another bird-book recently announced by Mr. R. H. 

 Porter is a volume on ' Indian Ducks and their Allies,' 

 which is being prepared by Mr. E. C. Stuart-Baker, one of 

 our most active writers on the Birds of the Oriental Region. 

 It will form a handsome volume of over 300 pages of text, 

 illustrated by thirty coloured chromolithographic plates, 

 prepared under the supervision of Mr. Grcinvold. 



A third work in preparation, which will be of special 

 interest to students of European Birds, is Colonel W illoughby 

 Verner^s ' Life among the Wild Birds of Spain,' which will 

 be shortly issued by Messrs. John Bale, Sons, & Danielsson. 

 Col. Verner's numerous and exciting adventures in search 

 of the birds of Southern Spain and their nests and eggs 

 will be fully told in this volume, which will be profusely 



