EDITORIAL NOTE. 



With this brochure the Trustees of the Minnesota Academy of 

 Natural Sciences enter upon the issue of a new series of publications. 

 It is termed "Occasional Papers." The series is instituted to enable 

 the Academy to print the researches of its members when such re- 

 searches attain the measure of a monograph or memoir. It will 

 also enable the Trustees to prepare and distribute the results of in- 

 vestigations more promptly than could be done were such material 

 to await its place in the series of Bulletins. It is hoped that the rea- 

 sons which have prevented the inception of the series of Occasional 

 Papers will not in the future prevent the issue of such material as 

 may be deemed worthy of publication. 



The specimens described in the following "Preliminary Notes" as 

 well as the entire collection of the Menage Scientific Expedition to 

 the Philippine Islands, are the property of the Minnesota Academy 

 of Natural Sciences. An exchange list will be issued to which the 

 attention of all zoologists and of ornithologists in particular will be 

 invited. C. W. HALL. 



