Letters, Extracts, Notices, i^c. 459 



We have also to record the loss of a second distinguished 

 traveller and naturalist of the Russian Empire at nearly the 

 same date, though a younger man. Dr. Leopold von 

 ScHRENCK, the first scientific explorer of Amoorland, died 

 in St. Petersburg on the 20th of January last. As we 

 learn from Dr. Leverkiihn's notice, which he has kindly 

 sent us, V. Schrenck was born in 1826, and, after taking 

 the degree of M.D. at the University of Dorpat, studied 

 Natural History at Berlin and Konigsberg. In 1853 

 he started to travel round the world, and devoted several 

 years to the exploration of the region traversed by the 

 great river Amoor and its affluents. The results of these 

 investigations were given to the world in the celebrated 

 work ' Reisen und Forschungen im Anmr-Lande' (St. Peters- 

 burg, 1859-67), of which the second volume, containing the 

 Birds, was published in 1860. This work and Midden- 

 dorff's ' Sibirische Reise' and Radde's 'Reisen im Siiden 

 von Ost-Sibirien ' are still our three principal authorities on 

 the ornithology of N.E. Asia. Von Schrenck was long in 

 the service of the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Peters- 

 burg, and in 1879 was appointed Director of the Anthro- 

 pological and Ethnographical Museum. He was engaged up 

 to the last in the arrangement and improvement of this 

 collection. 



We have also to record the death, on the 28th of March 

 last, at a ripe old age, of Herr Oberamtmann Ferdinand 

 Heine, of Gut St. Burchard, Halberstadt, the founder and 

 owner of the Museum Heineanura, one of the largest and 

 best arranged private collections of birds in Europe. 

 Ferdinand Heine, as we learn from the ' Ornithologischer 

 Monatsbericht ' of May last, was born on the 9th of March, 

 1809, and from his earliest youth showed the keenest 

 interest for birds, which was first manifested by liis keeping 

 tame pigeons of various select breeds. In 1830 he began to 

 collect foreign birds, which were at first arranged as orna- 

 ments for his rooms, but as their number increased were 

 gradually taken up as objects of scientific study. In 1843 



