478 Letters, Extracts, Notices, fyc. 



on the ploughed fields and cultivated land lying between 

 ►Syracuse and Catania. The species has been mentioned by 

 Dodcrlein and other writers on Sicilian birds as a regular 

 winter visitor to the island. 



I have lately also had the pleasure of obtaining in Sicily a 

 specimen of Nordmann's Pratincole (Gtareota melanoptera) . 

 This example, an adult male, was sent to me in the flesh on 

 the 27th of April last from Marsala, having been shot in that 

 neighbourhood. 



This eastern species, so far as I am aware, has never hitherto 

 been recorded from Sicily, and apparently it has only once 

 before been obtained in Italy, the solitary instance of its 

 occurrence in the peninsula being that recorded by Count 

 Arrigoni as having taken place on the 5th of May, 1892, at 

 Bagnolo, near Vicenza (Atl. Orn. p. 362). 



Another " rara avis " for Sicily came into my possession 

 last November in the shape of an adult male of the Lesser 

 Redpoll (Linota rufescens), which was actually shot in my 

 garden close to the town of Palermo, during my absence. 

 This species appears to have been hitherto unrecorded in 

 Sicily and Southern Italy generally, although it occurs in 

 the north of the peninsula, and has occasionally been met 

 with even as far south as Tuscany. 



Though usually found in North Italy merely as a winter 

 migrant, there appear to be undoubted instances of this 

 species having nested in the Italian Alps. 



Yours &c., 

 Palermo, Joseph I. S. Whitaker. 



June 4th, 1904. 



An Ornithologists' Union for South Africa. — We learn 

 with much pleasure that a scheme has been started for the 

 formation of an Ornithologists' Union for South Africa. 

 The opportunity was taken of the Second Meeting of the 

 South-African Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 in Johannesburg, to inaugurate this movement ; and its 

 supporters were summoned to the Government Normal 

 Schools at that city, on April 9th last, to discuss the subject. 



