Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 487 



existence. It is contained in 35 cabinets, with about 24 

 drawers in each cabinet, and follows the systematic order of 

 the Bird Catalogue. In it are comprised, besides the old 

 collection, the large collections of Gould, Hume, Salvin and 

 Godmau, and Seebohm. It is thus rich in Indian, Palae- 

 arctic, Australian, and Central- American eggs, but com- 

 paratively poor in South-American and African forms. A 

 Handbook of General Oology, based upon this splendid 

 series, would be a most valuable work, and will, we trust, 

 shortly be undertaken. Nothing of the sort has been pub- 

 lished since the appearance of Des Murs's 'Traite General 

 d'Oologie Ornithologique ' in 1860. 



The late With. Hollandt's Collection of Birds' -e(/gs. — The 

 extensive collection of birds^-eggs formed by the late Wilhelm 

 Hollandt has been bequeathed, as we learn from a com- 

 munication made by Dr. Wilhelm Blasius to the Verein 

 fiir Naturwissenschaft zu Braunschweig, to the Ducal Mu- 

 seum of Brunswick. It contains 10,162 specimens, referred 

 to 2710 species, and embraces examples of the eggs of 103 

 families out of the 116 acknowledged by G. R. Gray in his 

 Hand-list, according to which it was arranged and catalogued 

 by its late owner. 



The Gdtke Collection of Birds. — The Gatke Collection of 

 Birds and Eggs and the Library annexed are now, as Dr. 

 Clemens Hartlaub kindly informs us, the property of the 

 Prussian State, and have been placed under the control of 

 the Royal Biological Institution in Heligoland. It is 

 expected that they will be removed into the new museum in 

 Heligoland in the course of the present summer and rendered 

 accessible to the public. The specimens of birds, some of 

 which were in a very bad condition, are being carefully 

 examined and repaired by an experienced taxidermist. New 

 additions continue to be made to the series, amongst which 

 are a melanistic variety of Alauda tartarica and examples of 

 the Spoonbill and of Puffinus major. 



