332 Notes and Neivs. (July 



Jiavipes, until we come to the really notable tleparture in this particular 

 as found in the sternum of the Sandpiper which is the subject of this 

 letter.* 



If you will kindly grant me a few more lines of your valuable space, I 

 would like to add here a few supplemental notes in reference to the pter}'- 

 lography of the genus Sphyrapicns. It will be remembered that in tiie 

 April (iSS8) issue of 'The Auk,' I figured this character for a Woodpecker 

 of that genus, and showed how the 'saddle-tract' resembled that pteryla 

 in most Passeres. This was perfectly true for all the examples then at my 

 command, but since then considerable more material has come under my 

 observation, and in some individuals of Sphyrapicns v. nuchalis, I find 

 the pattern of the dorsal tracts in their pterj-lography, quite Picine in 

 character, while several individuals prettily show intermediate steps ap- 

 proaching the pattern of the specimen I figured in w\y former letter on 

 this point, alluded to above. In a letter of inine published in 'The Auk' 

 in July, 1887, I showed how widely different in form the skulls of two birds 

 of the same species might be, and I am now inclined to think that similar 

 departures may occasionally be met with, where the pterylography may- 

 vary within certain limits for the same species. This would appear to be 

 the case anyway in the Woodpecker about which I have been speaking. 



Very respectfully 3'ours, 



R. W. Shufeldt. 

 Fort WiHgate, New Alexico, 

 March 27, 18SS. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Henry James Stovin Pryer, a corresponding member of the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union, died in Yokohama, Japan, where he has resided 

 for many years, on February 17, 18S8, from bronchial pneumonia. He 

 was born in London, near Finsbury Square, June 10, 1850, the youngest 

 son of Thomas Pryer, a London solicitor. He went to China in 1871, but 

 shortly after he settled in Japan, where he engaged in mercantile business, 

 devoting all his spare time to collecting natural history objects and to 

 studying tiie butterflies and birds of that country. 



* Since writing the above, I have received a valued communication from Mr. J. A. 

 Allen, who has kindly looked into this matter for me, and reports that he finds the 

 "two-notched'' sternum in Tofantis ochropiis. I further learn that the sternum of this 

 species is figured in Mr. Seebohm's recent work on tlie 'Charadriid;e,' but note with 

 surprise that he makes so light of such an admirable generic character. This con- 

 vinces me more than ever, that the genus Rhyacophilus should be restored. — R. W. S. 



