Letters, Extracts, Notices, &^c. 289 



ably conspicuous. The experiments were an overwhelming 



success. 



The Rosy Bullfinch in Holland. — Mr. Blaauw writes to us 

 that at a recent bird-show held at Utrecht he saw a living 

 female (or young male) of the Rosy Bullfinch [Carpodacus 

 erythrinus) exhibited. This bird had been captured in a net 

 near Zwolle on Nov. 12th, 1896. This is the third recorded 

 occurrence of the Rosy Bullfinch in the Netherlands. 



The Chaffinch of Timbuctoo. — We have all heard of the 

 Cassowary of Timbuctoo, but it has remained for a learned 

 French traveller, who has recently visited that city, to 

 discover a Chaffinch there. This is how M. Dubois describes 

 the bird in ^Timbuctoo the Mysterious,^ as he sits in the 

 veranda of his hired house looking over a courtyard, and 

 '' chaffs " with his native friends : — 



" Chaffinches with red throats and tails, and the lively 

 little lizards who shared the apartments with me, joined the 

 party. They frolicked in our midst with the utmost 

 effrontery. The lizards ran about all over my guests, and 

 the birds flew round them, fluttering and singing incessantly. 

 No one but myself took any notice of them, however, so 

 accustomed is Timbuctoo to their numbers and caprices." 



Now what is the " Chaffinch ' of Timbuctoo ? Probably 

 Emberiza saharae ? Now that our neighbours on the opposite 

 side of the Channel have taken possession of Timbuctoo we 

 should like to have from them rather more definite informa- 

 tion about its birds. 



The " Operculum " in Ratite Birds. — In a recent number 

 of * Nature ' (vol. liii. p. 279) attention is called to the 

 discovery by Prof. Nassonow (Zool. Anz. xviii. p. 487) of an 

 operculum in Strut hio, and to the fact that the same structure 

 had been previously noticed in Apteryx by Prof. T. J. 

 Parker (Phil. Trans. 182 B, p. 31). This ''operculum'' is 

 a fold of skin which grows over and gradually obliterates the 

 embryonic gill-clefts in the Amphibia. Prof. Parker justly 

 observes in the paper cited that " the retention of so 



