Occasional Notes. 121 



OCCASIONAL NOTES. 



(1) Mr. John A. Bucknill has been elected a Member of 

 the British Ornithologists' Union. 



(2) The Hon. Secretary has received a letter from Pro- 

 fessor Alfred Newton, F.R.S., of Magdalene College, Cam- 

 bridge, thanking the Members of the Union for their kindness 

 in electing him as an Honorary Member ; he congratulates 

 the Union on its formation and wishes it continued prosperity. 



(3) As the concluding volume of Stark and Sclater's 

 ' Fauna of S. Africa : Birds ' has now been published, the 

 nomenclature used in this Journal will in future, as far as 

 possible, follow that of this work. In cases where this course 

 cannot be adopted the full reference to whatever work the 

 name is taken from will be oiven. 



(4) Mr. W. L. ScLATER records in ' The Ibis ' for January, 

 11)06, the second known local specimen of the rare llialasso- 

 (jeron layardi (Layard's Mollymawk) . It was obtained by 

 the late Mr. J. 0. Marais off the Knysna Heads, on the 

 eastern coast of Cape Colony, in August 1899, and is now in 

 the Pretoria Museum. Messrs. Ogilvie-Grant and Rothschild 

 have decided that Lajard's Mollymawk, which was until 

 recently supposed to be of specific identity, is really the same 

 as Diomedea caiita (Shy Albatross), a species which is found 

 not uncommonly in New Zealand waters and was described 

 by Gould in 1840. The bird breeds on the Bounty Islands. 



(5) Amongst the many collections of Ornithological in- 

 terest which were acquired for the British Museum in the 

 year 1904-5 was one consisting of four hundred and twenty- 

 seven birds and eggs from the Orange River Colony and 

 British Bechuanaland, collected by ]\Iessrs. R. B. Woosnam 

 iind R. E. Dent. 



