572 Letters, Extracts, Notices, <5fC. 



who happen to possess the second edition of my ' Birds of 

 New Zealand/ to learn that, through a most unfortunate 

 shipwreck, the number of copies in existence has been con- 

 siderably diminished, and the commercial value of the book 

 affected accordingly. 



By the last mail from New Zealand I received a letter from 

 Mr. T. F. Cheesman, the Curator of the Auckland Museum, 

 who had kindly undertaken to be my distributing agent, in 

 which he says : — " I was glad to hear that the subscribers' 

 copies of your book were on their way, and I got everything 

 ready for attending to their distribution immediately on 

 arrival, in accordance with the plan mentioned in your letter. 

 You will be very sorry to hear, however, that, through a most 

 unfortunate and lamentable accident, the whole consignment 

 has been lost. The cases arrived in Wellington quite safely, 

 and were transhipped to Auckland by the Union Company's 

 steamer the ' Maitai.' She ran upon a rock near the Mercury 

 Islands and went down in deep water, there being hardly 

 time for the crew and passengers to get oflP — in fact, two 

 were drowned. The loss is a most unfortunate one, and no 

 one regrets it more than myself." 



Yours &c., 



Walter Buller. 



Keswick, Norwich, 

 June 2Sth, 1889. 



Sir, — Among birds there is an undoubted tendency in 

 species to vary not infrequently, and for the most part in 

 plumage, so as to resemble other allied species which inhabit 

 a different geographical area. One cannot help thinking 

 that this tendency, which does not seem to have been much 

 dwelt on by any writer, will now and then furnish a key to the 

 supposed appearances of birds in a country remote from their 

 own. It is not impossible that thus we may account for a 

 recent acquisition of the British list in the shape of Adams's 

 -f- Diver [Colymbus adamsi), which is only distinguished from 

 the Great Northen Diver (C. glacialis) by the white colour 

 of the bill and a slight difference in its shape. It is stated 

 that Divers indistinguishable from the American species have 



