Letters, Extracts, Notices, §c. 479 



Mr. W. L. Sclater, Director of the South-African Museum, 

 Cape Towff, presided, and representatives from all the 

 South-African Colonies were present. After some pre- 

 liminary remarks, the Chairman called upon Mr. A. L. 

 Haagner, of Modderfontein, M.B.O.U., who, in response, 

 gave some particulars of the steps which he had taken 

 towards the realisation of the object in view. From this 

 it appeared that a previous movement for the inception of a 

 Union had been stopped by the late war. Now, thinking 

 the time opportune for carrying such a movement into effect, 

 Mr. Haagner had consulted with snch well-known ornitho- 

 logists as Mr. Thomas Ayres, Mr. W. L. Sclater, and 

 Dr. Gunning, and as a result had circularised numerous 

 people throughout the sub-continent. He had received many 

 gratifying replies, and had the names of forty intending 

 members, twenty-one of whom lived in the Transvaal, twelve 

 in the Cape Colony, four in Natal, two in the Orange River 

 Colony, and one in Rhodesia. He suggested that Pretoria, 

 with its zoological garden and museum, would form excellent 

 headquarters. 



Dr. Gunning moved formally that a South-African 

 Ornithologists' Union should be formed, with a committee 

 to frame rules and consider the matter of a journal, the 

 committee to report on the subject. 



Mr. Bicknell seconded the motion, and said that, to make 

 the Union a success, they must have the right people and 

 a journal. They had promises of support from some of the 

 first men in South Africa, but the journal would be a great 

 expense. 



The motion was carried, and the following committee 

 formed to report upon it : — Mr. Sclater (Cape Colony), 

 Dr. Gunning and Mr. Bicknell (Pretoria), Messrs. A. W. 

 Millar (Durban), Alexander and Ellamor (Johannesburg), 

 W. Macdonald (Pretoria), and Mr. A. C. Haagner (Modder- 

 fontein), Hon. Secretary pro tern. 



An address was afterwards given by Mr. W. L. Sclater on 

 Ornithological Unions in America, England, and elsewhere. 



Mr. Haagner requests that any British ornithologist who 



