Correspondence.



187



for the purpose, due space being provided for name of species, name of

collector, date, locality, number of eggs in set, set mark, identity,

incubation, and nature of the nest—a useful and comprehensive

summary.


G. R.



EXTINCT BIRDS.


Dear Dr. Renshaw, — I still have the photograph you sent me

of the Dodo model, which is in the collections of the Museum in Paris,

and the two others that came with it. The matter of modelling

restorations of extinct birds greatly interests me, although I have not

been in that field for several years past. In all such matters I chiefly

depend upon the collections of our United States National Museum

here, and they are truly wonderful in their extent and general com¬

pleteness. We have a mounted Great Auk and a plaster cast of its

egg—possibly an egg ; while on the other hand, we have done very

little in the matter of “ make-ups Possibly they do more of that

class of work up at the American Museum in New York City. In the

Scientific American Supplement, several years ago, I published many of

Rothschild’s extinct birds, and in 1884 an article in Century Magazine

on “ Feathered Forms of Other Days ”. There was a drawing of mine

of the Dodo in that article, also the Great Auk, and various other

birds and reptilian birds, including a terrible restoration of Archaeopteryx

which I “ disowned ” long ago. As you know, I have published a great

many papers and formal works on fossil birds, and I have probably

described more species than any other palaeornithologist living. We

have no flightless birds in our United States avifauna ; the Great Auk

has been written to shreds, and Lucas has fully described our Great

Auk mount. My figure of the bird has been published over and over

again—even in school books and general lexicons. It will, nevertheless,

afford me great pleasure to get you up some short article on an

ornithological subject.


On the other hand, we have fine skeletal restorations of our

extinct birds, such as Hesperornis and a few other forms. I could

readily touch upon allied subjects, as Great Auks’ eggs, etc. What



