Letters, Announcements, ^c. 491 



therefore see nothing to regret, but, ou the contrary, cause for 

 congratulation that the uncertainty of the authorship of this 

 unfinished paper places it in the category of anonymous works, 

 and renders it, in our opinion, unusable for purposes of no- 

 menclature. — Edd.] 



Dresden, August 4, 1877. 



(R. Zoological Museum.) 



SiRs,^ — I described in the year 1874 (Sitz. Akad. Wien, 

 Ixix. p. 493) a new genus and species of Dicruridse from New 

 Guinea, Ch(Btorliynchus papuensis. I then had overlooked a 

 very characteristic large spot of white feathers on the edge 

 of each shoulder ; also Mr. Sliarpe, who has described and 

 figured the bird in his Catalogue (vol. iii. 1877, p. 242, pi. xiii.), 

 does not mention these white spots. The reason why they 

 have been overlooked by both of us is this, that they are con- 

 cealed by the feathers of the mantle when the bird is looked 

 at with closed wings. But just having had a specimen stuffed 

 with the wings spread, the spots appeared, and could no 

 longer be overlooked. I am anxious to publish this valuable 

 specific character of Chtetorhynchus papuensis, because I am 

 afraid, if I do not, that the same bird will soon be redis- 

 cribed under a new specific name. 



Yours &c., 



A. B. Meyer. 



Northrepps Hall, Norwich. 

 6tli September 1877. 



Sirs, — Allow me to correct an error which I have inad- 

 vertently made in the enumeration of the Transvaal birds 

 recorded in ' The Ibis ' by Mr. Thomas Ayres. 



In ' The Ibis ' for 1876, p. 433, is the following sentence : — 

 "Mr. Ayres^s previous papers on the birds of Transvaal recorfl? 

 152 species, vide Ibis, 1874, p. 107." The latter part of the 

 sentence ought to have run thus, — " record 213 species, vide 

 Ibis, 1874, p. 105.^' 



As the result of this correction, the number of the last 



