Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 527 



tlie former sum of 20s. The Secretary will be much obliged 

 if these members will give the necessary instructions as 

 quickly as possible. New " Banker's Order'' forms for the 

 purpose can be had on application. 



Oological Dinner. — It is proposed to hold the second 

 annual Oological dinner on Wednesday, September 13th, 

 1916, at 7 o'clock, at Pagani's Restaurant, Great Portland 

 Street. 



This dinner will be open to all naturalists specially inter- 

 ested in Oology, and those who wish to attend, or to exhibit 

 specimens of rare or interesting eggs, are asked to send their 

 names to Mr. Clifford Eorrer, 20 Pelham Crescent, South 

 Kensington, at least a fortnight before the dinner. 



Honour for a M. B. O. U. — The many friends of Mr. 

 Eagle Clarke will be pleased to hear that he is to receive 

 the well-merited reward of the honorary degree of LL.D. 

 from the University of St. Andrews on July the 6th. 



Mr. Beebe on Archceopteryx and the ancesty-y of birds. — An 

 ingenious attempt to demonstrate " a Tetrapteryx Stage iu 

 the Ancestry of Birds " has just been made by Mr. C. W. 

 Beebe in 'Zoologica,' vol. ii., No. 2. The author insists 

 that the precocious and conspicuous development of the 

 femoral tract in the pterylosis of nestling birds points con- 

 clusively to a stage in the development of the pro-aves when 

 this tract was formed of large quill-like feathers, which, with 

 similar feathers along the post-axial border of the fore-limb, 

 afforded a parachute-like mechanism, comparable to the 

 flying-membranes of flying-squirrels, and preceded true 

 flight. The hypothetical restoration of this four-winged 

 stage, which forms the frontispiece to his essay, is curiously- 

 like that which appeared in ' Knowledge ' in 1906, save that 

 this lacked the '* femoral wings." Mr. Beebe seeks to 

 justify his hypothesis by an appeal to pliotographs of the 



