Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 165 



Edmund Coulthurst, of Streatham Lodge, Lower Streatham. 

 Of the forty-four volumes, thirty-six were bound in green 

 morocco, and the I'emainder were in parts. The series 

 comprised the following: — 'Birds of Australia ■* and supple- 

 ment; 'Birds of Europe"; 'Birds of Great Britain'; 'Mammals 

 of Australia'; ' Trochilidse/ or Humming-birds, with supple- 

 ment; ' Birds of the Himalayan Mountains'; monographs of 

 the Odontophorinse, or Partridges of America ; of the Rham- 

 phastidee, or family of Toucans ; of the Trogonidae, or family 

 of Trogons ; and of the Macropodidse, or Kangaroos ; ' Birds 

 of Asia,' and the ' Birds of New Guinea.' The prices of all 

 these works at auction vary from time to time, but during 

 the past two or three seasons a set of ordinary copies (that 

 is to say, not of the original subscribers' edition) have 

 realized an aggregate of rather more than .€373. The 

 published price of a set, including second editions, is now 

 about £670. Mr. Coulthurst's very fine set realized the 

 total amount of £4'30. 



Capture of a fourth Living Specimen of Notornis. — All 

 ornithologists will be interested to hear of the capture of 

 another living example of Notornis mantelli (or, if we are to 

 follow Dr. Meyer, A'', hochstetteri) in New Zealand. This is 

 only the fourth during a period of fifty years, so that it may 

 be safely assumed that the species is verging on extinction. 

 The first two specimens (obtained by Mr. Walter Mantell in 

 1848) are in the British Museum. The third specimen 

 (captured by a party of rabbiters on Bare-patch Plain, near 

 Lake Te Anau, thirty years later) is in the Royal Museum at 

 Dresden. The fourth (a young female in beautiful glossy 

 plumage) was killed by a dog on the western shore of Lake 

 Te Anau in the early part of August last. It was imme- 

 diately forwarded to Dunedin, and was most successfully 

 mounted by Mr. Jennings, the taxidermist to the Otago 

 Museum, the attitude being copied from the plate by Keule- 

 mans in Sir Walter BuUer's ' Birds of New Zealand.' The 

 capture was eff'ected in the most matter-of-fact way. As 

 Mr. Ross (brother of the Milford Sound guide of that 



