2o8 Notes and News. fApril 



forming one volume imperial folio, at a cost to subscribers of three 

 guineas per part. Most of the species have already been figured in 

 Gould's 'Birds of New Guinea,' and where practicable, Gould's plates will 

 be utilized, but in many cases the species will be re-drawn, and wholly new 

 plates added of the many striking species only recently described. Each 

 will contain ten magnificent hand-colored illustrations, and the edition 

 will be limited to 350 copies. 



Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, U. S. A., has been detailed as surgeon and 

 naturalist to the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission, 

 which is to re-locate and permanently mai-k the international boundary 

 line. The Commission left El Paso early in March, and the march to 

 the Pacific coast and return is expected to occupy rather more than two 

 years. As the survey will thus move slowly. Dr. Mearns will doubtless 

 have excellent opportunity for field work and collecting, and in view of 

 his boundless energy and untiring industrj' we may safely look forward 

 to important scientific results from his labors. 



Mr. S.N. Rhoads, of Philadelphia, has started on a six months' collect- 

 ing trip to British Columbia. He intends first to spend a month cruising 

 in Puget Sound and along the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, and 

 then to visit the Cariboo Lake region of central British Columbia, and 

 thence work southward to the Columbia River, along the western slope of 

 the Selkirks, as far as the United States boundary. He will devote him- 

 self especially to birds and mammals. 



Mr. Robert C. L. Perkins of London, England, recently sailed for 

 the Hawaiian Islands, via New York, to spend several years in a thorough 

 exploration of the bird and insect life of this group of islands, where in 

 these departments of zoology much still remains to be done. Notwith- 

 standing the attention of late given to the birds of the Hawaiian group, it 

 is believed a rich harvest still remains ungathered. 



Cuba seems just now to be attracting to an unusual degree the attention 

 of American ornithologists. In February Mr. Frank M. Chapman, of 

 the American Museum of Natural History, began a two months' explora- 

 tion of portions of the southern coast of the island, and Mr. C. B. Cory, 

 with a trained assistant, has resumed his field investigations of the Cuban 

 avifauna. 



Mr. W. E. D. Scott selected the vicinity of Fort Myers, Florida as 

 his field for ornithological work during the past winter, he reaching Fort 

 Myers the last of November. His explorations of this slightly known 

 field have been attended with interesting results, which later will be 

 made known to the readers of 'The Auk.' 



