642 Bulletin of the British 



Tlie announcement of the unexpected death of Mr. JoH^ 

 Whitehead, the well-known naturalist and explorer, was re- 

 ceived with great regret. A telegram had been received from 

 Hainan stating that he had succumbed to a severe attack of 

 fever on the 2nd of June. Mr. Whitehead had left this 

 country in January with the intention of completing his 

 investigation of the Philippine Fauna and exploring the high- 

 lands of Hainan and Formosa. Finding it impossible to do 

 any work in the Philippines in their present disturbed state, 

 he had proceeded to Hainan and had started for the interior 

 of the island on the 13th of March. In his letter, dated the 

 1st of May, he had reported that he had been very ill and 

 that collecting was almost at a standstill, his entire party 

 having been attacked by fever of a most malignant type. He 

 appeared to have reached the coast, but only to die at Hoihow, 

 and his loss to the scientific world, at the early age of 38, 

 could not be too greatly deplored. A brilliant field-naturalist, 

 his successes in Corsica, North Borneo, and the Philippine 

 Islands were well known through the pages of ' The Ibis/ 

 and it had been hoped that he would long be spared to con- 

 tinue his useful and interesting career. 



A vote of sympathy with the family of the deceased was 

 unanimously passed. 



Mr. J. L. BoNHOTE exhibited an example of Mhnus poly- 

 glottus, which he had obtained at Nassau, New Providence. 



This individual diff'ered from the majority of specimens in 

 the British Museum in having dark bases to the three outer 

 pairs of tail-feathers. 



Mr. Boyd Alexander exhibited male and female examples 

 of a new species of Sun-bird which he had obtained near the 

 Kafui River, South Africa. He proposed to call this species : — 



CiNNYRIS SHELLEYI, sp. n. 



Adult male. Entire head, neck, back^ and lesser wing- 

 coverts metallic green, a slight golden gloss on the back of the 

 head, neck, and mantle ; wings and tail black. At the base 

 of the metallic-green throat is a narrow steel-blue collar, 



