Letters, Extracts, Notices, cVc. 479 



have frequent occasion to refer to the twenty-seven volumes 

 of the Great Catalogue, and will save them much labour in 

 turning over its pages. 



Birds of Somali-land. — Mr. and Mrs. E. Lort Phillips 

 returned to London on May 1st after passing two months 

 in the Highlands of Somali-land. The collection of birds 

 made on the present occasion consists of about 300 specimens, 

 many of which — such as Sylvia blanfordi, Buchanga assimilis, 

 Tricholcema blandi, Telephonus jamesi, Dryoscopus funebris, 

 and others, as also the nests and eggs of Eurocej)halus 

 rueppelli — are of considerable interest, though it has not yet 

 been ascertained that any of the specimens belong to species 

 absolutely new to science. Further particulars of the results 

 arrived at will be given in a future number of this Journal 

 by Mr. Lort Phillips, who has in contemplation a general 

 work on the Avifauna of this most interesting and most 

 attractive country. 



Birds of the Gambia Colony. — Mr. J. S. Budgett, F.Z.S., 

 who has been on a scientific mission to the River Gambia 

 all the past winter on behalf of the Zoological Society of 

 London, although he devotes his chief attention to Fishes, 

 has not neglected the Birds, and is expected to bring back 

 a good series of skins and spirit-specimens of this Class on 

 his return to England. We are not aware of a single 

 authority in existence on the Birds of this much-neglected 

 British Colony. 



New Handbook of South- African Birds. — Mr. Arthur C. 

 Stark, M.B., is preparing a new " Handbook^' of the Birds 

 of Africa south of the Zambesi, of which the first volume 

 will shortly be ready for issue. It will form a portion of 

 Mr. W. L. Sclater's ' Fauna of South Africa,' a work 

 plaiuied on the same lines as Mr. Blanford's * Fauna of 

 British India,' and will be illustrated by many woodcuts in 

 the text. The publisher is Mr. R. H. Porter. 



