Vol. IV. 

 1904 



1 About Members. T^t 



with descriptive matter, &c., of over 700 species. The whole cost 

 £21, and is newly bound. Can be had for seven guineas. 



The great Boer War brought the bond of British brethren all 

 over the world closer together in more ways than one. The 

 prominence which it gave to the colonies caused the British 

 Ornithologists' Union to create a "colonial membership." This 

 distinction fell upon two members of the Aust. O.U. last year — 

 namely, Col. W. V. Legge, F.Z.S., Tasmania, and Capt. F. W. 

 Hutton, F.R.S., New Zealand; while the honour this year — the 

 sole one for Australasia — has fallen to Mr. A. J. Campbell. 

 Colonial memberships are limited to ten residents in the British 

 ■colonies and India. 



Captain F. W. Hutton, F.R.S. (President of the Aust. O.U.), 

 and Mr. James Drummond are publishing a work, " The Animals 

 of New Zealand," which should be valuable to all Australasian 

 naturalists. The aim of the authors has been " to combine 

 popular information with the purely scientific," and in their 

 prospectus they acknowledge that they have drawn freely on 

 the work of others to make their own complete. This is as it 

 should be. The contents embrace almost everything from mam- 

 malia to the N.Z. batrachia, and the list of birds dealt with is 

 so full that to ornithologists the work should be a treasure. 

 Whitcombe and Tombs Limited are the publishers, and the 

 specimen illustrations are as excellent as the text. 



• The following are extracts from a private letter received from 

 Mr. Ed. Degen by Mr. A. J. Campbell : — 



"Once more I am happy to inform you I am on my way to the 

 Dark Continent, on which we hope to land within a few hours. 

 This time I am a inember of the exploring staff of a private expedition 

 of French enterprise — namely, that .of the Baron Maurice de Roths- 

 child of Paris, a young and enthusiastic traveller. As usual, I am to 

 look after the preserving and collecting parts, but it offers a good 

 deal of other opportunities to make oneself useful, such as anthropo- 

 logical research, photography (of which we have about a dozen different 

 apparatus, as well as cinematographs, &c.) The actual leader will be 

 the Marquis de Bonchamps, a famous explorer, and a companion for 

 some time to Colonel Marchand, of Fashoda fame. I am engaged as 

 second naturalist, and my colleague, Dr. Neuville, of the Paris Museum, 

 to my exquisite delight, is a capital chum. So also is our medical 

 member. Dr. Roger, who also had some previous experience in 

 Abyssinia. We shall go through that country again, going up to 

 Addis Abbeba, the capital, and thence south via Lakes Zual, Hogga, 

 Lausana, Abaya, Stephanie, and Randolph, finally picking our way to 

 the south-west into the districts between the Victoria Nile and the 

 sources of the Albert Edward, and west and south of them to the 

 Semliki Forest of the Upper Congo, having, if possible i^seasons and' 

 circumstances permitting), a peep at the Mountains of the Moon, an 

 ambition we all cherish. In magnitude ovir caravans will assume 

 considerable proportions, and will not be very much inferior to those 

 of such explorers as Livingstone, Stanley, or Burton. Time permitting, 

 a decent ' bag ' ought to be obtained (providing we have not to leave 



