Letters, Announcements, &^'c. 301 



Natal. My friend M. Jules Verreaux, after whom I have great 

 pleasure in naming this species, also met it during his first voyage 

 to Natal in the year 1827. It appeared to keep in small flocks, 

 of from seven to eight individuals, always remaining in the 

 bushes that bordered the rivers, and was very wild, so much so, 

 in fact, that during the several journeys which he made into 

 the interior, he was never able to procure more than three 

 specimens, which unfortunately were lost with all his other large 

 collections by shipwreck on the coast of France, on his i-eturn 

 in 1840. I am, &c., D. G. Elliot. 



Sir, — I should like to mention in ' The Ibis ' that I have just 

 received from my friend Mr. Brooks a pair of Sylvia melanopogon, 

 Temminck — Amnicola melanopogon, Gerbe (Orn. Eur. i. p. 527), 

 shot at Etawah in the North-western Provinces of India, an 

 entirely new locality for this rare warbler, of which I never 

 before saw but the single example obtained on my expedition to 

 Palestine (P. Z. S. 1864, p. 438; Ibis, 1867, p. 77). 



I am, &c., H. B. Tristram. 



The meaning and derivation of the word "lag^' in the com- 

 mon English name for Anser ferus has long been a puzzle to 

 most people, and we are fortunate in being able to give what 

 we believe to be its true signification. With this we have been 

 kindly favoui'ed by so great an authority on early English as Mr. 

 Skeat. The adjective '' lag " means originally late, last, or slow, 

 whence we have " laggard " and " laglast,^' a loiterer, " lagman," 

 the last man, " lagteeth," the posterior molar or wisdom-teeth 

 (as the last to make their appearance), and "lagclock,^' a clock 

 that is behind time. Accordingly the Grey Lag Goose is the 

 Grey Goose which, in former days, lagged behind the others to 

 breed in our fens, as it now does on the Sutherland lochs, when 

 its congeners had betaken themselves to their more northern 

 summer-quarters. This solution of an old difficulty will, we 

 think, be considered no less satisfactory than simple. 



It is with very great regret that we have to announce to our 

 readers the death of a frequent and valued contributor to 

 our pages, Mr. Robert Cecil Be a van. Lieutenant in the 



N. S. VOL. VI. Y 



