268 Letters, Extracts, Notices, fyc. 



who was an ardent collector and a faithful and accurate ob- 

 server of nature. In 1882 Hunstein accompanied Dr. Finsch 

 on his trip up the Laloki River in British New Guinea. In 

 1884, when Dr. Finsch was proceeding in the f Samoa ' to 

 annex the German portion of New Guinea (now Kaiser- 

 Wilhelm's-land), he met Hunstein at Cookstown, just 

 returned from a most successful collecting-trip in the Horse- 

 shoe Mountains of the Owen-Stanley Range, and obtained 

 from him a splendid series of specimens, which were after- 

 wards described by Dr. Finsch and Dr. Meyer *. 



Knowing the practical value of a man of Hunstein's 

 calibre, Dr. Finsch engaged him for the service of the 

 New Guinea Company of Berlin, but did not succeed in 

 getting him such an appointment as a man of his great 

 experience with natives deserved. Hunstein knew the Pa- 

 puans and their ways really well, and during nearly seven 

 years' sojourn amongst them never once had occasion to use 

 violent means of defence. When the great tidal wave 

 occurred on the west coast of New Britain, on the 13th of 

 March, 1888, Hunstein was in company with Herr von 

 Below, a coffee-planter from Celebes, along with four Malays 

 and twelve natives prospecting for coffee-lands on that coast. 

 The whole party was overwhelmed, and only two of the 

 natives were saved. No traces have ever been discovered 

 of the victims, and it was long before it was known what 

 had become of them. 



Ladislas Taczanowski. — With much regret we announce 

 the death, on the 17th of January last, after a short illness, 

 of the well-known ornithologist Ladislas Taczanowski, Con- 

 servator of the Warsaw Museum. We are indebted to Dr. 

 A. Wrzesniowski, Professor in the University of Warsaw, 

 for the following particulars of his life. 



Ladislas Taczanowski was born the 17th March, 1819, at 

 Jablona, in the Palatinate of Lublin. He began his educa- 

 tion at home, and was then admitted into the Gymnasium 

 at Lublin, which he left in 1838. After the death of his 



* See Ibis, 1886, p. 237, and Zeitsckr. f. d. ges. Orn. 1885, p. 369. 



