372 Letters, Extracts, Notices, S^c. 



XXXVIII. — Letters, Extracts, Notices, H^c. 



Wc have received the following letters addressed to the 

 Editors of ' The Ibis : '— 



Brunswick, 



April 23, 1888. 



Sirs, — In the April number of ' The Ibis/ which I received 

 from London yesterday, I find an essay by Mr. R. B. Sharpe 

 (containing descriptions and excellent illustrations of several 

 new species), ^^on a Collection of Birds from the Island of 

 Palawan." This has been printed simultaneously with a list 

 of my own of the birds of Palawan, which is appearing just 

 now in Vienna^ in Part ii. of the 'Ornis' for 1888. My work 

 is based chiefly upon a large collection of birds made by Dr. 

 and Mrs. Platen last year at Puerto Princesa in Palawan, in 

 which there are examples of several species new to science. 



At the meeting of the 'Yerein fiir Naturwissenschaft ' 

 in Brunswick, held on February 2, 1888, I described and 

 named tw o of these new species, namely, PrionocMlus plateni 

 [z=Pr.johann(s, Sharpe, Ibis, 1888, p. 201, pi. iv. fig. 1) and 

 Prioniturus platenas { = Pr. cyaneiceps, Sharpe, ibid. p. 191) ; 

 and at the meeting of the same Society, held on February 10, 

 1888, I also described Syy^nium iviepkeni { = 8. whiteheadi, 

 Sharpe, ibid. p. 196, pi. iii.), Siphia platen(B {=:Sip)hia eri- 

 thacus, Sharpe, ibid. p. 199, pi. iv. fig. 2), and Hyloterpe 

 plateni {=H. ivhiteheadi, Sharpe, ibid. p. 198). 



Siphia ramsayi of Palawan, which I also then described, 

 seems to have been either not obtained by Whitehead, or at 

 all events not named by Sharpe. 



The reports of this Society^s meetings, with the descrip- 

 tions (recognizable, as I believe) of these new species, were 

 published in the * Braunschweigische Anzeiger,^ no. 37, 

 February 12, 1888, p. 335, and no. 52, March 1, 1888, 

 p. 467. 



There can be no doubt, therefore_, that my names and 

 descriptions of the alcove-mentioned five new species have 

 priority, and that, in the place of Sharpc's names, mine 

 should in future he employed for them. 



