464 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^c. 



XL. — Letters, Extracts, Notices, 6^c. 

 We have received the following letters, addressed to the 

 Editor of ' The Ibis ' :— 



Municla, 23rd April, 1891. 

 Sir,— You refer in 'The Ibis' (1891, p. 278) to a paper 

 of Mr. Hartert, in which he relates that Surnia ulula has been 

 apparently confounded in some cases with Asio accipitrinus. 

 This remark (c/. J. f. O. 1890, p. 100) affects some well- 

 known German ornithologists, such as Bai'on v. Droste-Hiils- 

 hoff, whose son is the author of the ' Avifauna of the Isle of 

 Borkum,^ the late E. F. v. Homeyer, and Prof. Dr. Altum of 

 Neustadt-Eberswalde. The last-named replied in the last 

 issue of the J. f. O. (1891, pp. 104-106) to Mr. Hartert, 

 and rejected his suppositions earnestly. I did not think it 

 worth while to do the same, as Mr. Hartert with his notes 

 attacks primo loco the Baron E. F. v. Homeyer, who has 

 already dealt with my opinion (J. f. 0. 1888, nee 1880, pp. 358 

 -359). I wish, however, now to repeat that the bird in 

 question met with on the sea-shore near Kiel was not an 

 Ado accipitrinus, a species which I have observed and killed 

 there many times. I maintain what I first wrote, and what 

 is now confirmed by the authority of E. F. v. Homeyer and 

 that of Professor Altum. 



I am, yours &c., 



Paul Leverkuhn. 



Mogador, Morocco, 

 13th May, 1801. 



Sir, — As I observe that Mr. Howard Saunders, in hia 

 ' Majiual of British Birds,^ speaks of the White-winged Black 

 Tern {HydrockeUdon leucoptera) as *' hardly known in 

 Western Morocco,'' while Lieut. -Col. Howard Irby, in his 

 ' Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar,' speaks of a single 

 specimen having been shot in 1869 near Tangier, and says 

 that he has not himself observed it on either side of the 

 Straits, it may possibly interest some of your readers to 

 learn that I have seen several of these birds daring the begin- 



