738 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. [Ibis, 



At Colonel Tytler's death the collection was lost to sight, 

 and last year, when on leave in Simla, I" endeavoured to 

 trace it, without success. Curiously enough, however, a 

 month or two later, on visiting the Lahore Central Museum, 

 I learnt tliat the collection had recently been presented 

 to that Museum ; its history between the date of Colonel 

 Tytler's death and last year has been as follows. 



When Colonel Tytler died his widow, Mrs. Tytler, turned 

 the house " Bonnie Moon " into a sort of private hotel. 

 From exigencies of space the birds were moved from the 

 Museum-room and packed away in boxes, which were 

 stored in the house. The date of this would appear to be 

 about 1873, as, when opened, the skins were found to 

 be packed in newspapers of the dates 1871-1872-1873. 

 In the frequent absences of Mrs. Tytler in England and 

 elsewhere the boxes were not opened, and somewhat 

 neglected. In 1907 Mrs. Tytler by deed of gift presented 

 the collection with other property to her daughter-in-law, 

 Mrs. Livingstone-Thompson, who, after some other efforts 

 to dispose of it, sold it in 1S09 to Mr. B. Bevan-Petman, 

 tlie well-known barrister of Lahore. His intention was at 

 first apparently to present it to the Tring Museum, but 

 circumstances determined that he should give it to the 

 Lahore Museum. 



The Curator of the Lahore Museum very kindly asked 

 me if 1 would care to undertake the work of opening and 

 arranging the collection, so last month I went to Lahore 

 for ten days to do the preliminary work of opening the 

 boxes and seeing what there was. 



The collection was found to be in a very unsatisfactory 

 state, as was to be expected, after forty years^ neglect. 

 While a few skins were in perfect condition, many had 

 been entirely ruined by damp and insects. Each skin was 

 enclosed in a stitched envelope of newspaper; attached to 

 the skins were labels giving the data, and a more or less 

 duplicate label was stuck to the outside of the paper 

 envelope. 



