482 Leilas, Extracts, Notices, fyc. 



has long ago become impossible, with the result that year 

 after year valuable collections, often of large extent, have 

 been packed away in insecure rented buildings, where they 

 are, moreover, inaccessible." The halls are overcrowded, 

 and an increase in space of from one-half to two-thirds at 

 least is required to display their present contents properly. 



The Scotch Antarctic Expedition. — Mr. W. L. Sclater 

 writes from Cape Town (May 9th) that he has just had the 

 pleasure of greeting Mr. W. S. Bruce and the Officers of the 

 Scotch Antarctic Exploring Ship ( Scotia/ on their return 

 from their eighteen months' adventures in the South Polar 

 Seas. The 'Scotia' had passed the previous winter at a 

 harbour in the South Orkney Islands, where a new station 

 for magnetic and meteorological observations had been 

 established, and had made lengthened explorations in the 

 adjacent seas. Mr. W. L. Sclater has examined the col- 

 lection of sea-birds made by the ' Scotia/ which he says is 

 very ample, and contains examples of what is apparently a 

 new Albatross of the genus Phoehetria. On her way to the 

 Cape the naturalists of the ' Scotia ' had landed on Gough 

 Island, a remote outlier of the Tristan d'Acunha group, 

 and had obtained examples of the flightless Rail, Porphy- 

 riornis comeri, described by Dr. Allen in 1892 (see Bull. Am. 

 Mus. N. H. iv. p. 57), and also of an apparently new Finch, 

 probably allied to Nesospiza acunhee of Tristan d'Acunha and 

 Inaccessible Island (see ' Challenger' Reports, Zool. ii.p. 112, 

 pi. xxiv.). 



The Pennant -winged Nightjar at Lake Tana. — In his 

 recently published ' Sporting Trip through Abyssinia/ Major 

 Powell-Cotton tells us (p. 284) that he repeatedly noticed 

 a pair of curious-looking birds flitting along the shores of 

 Lake Tana. " It seemed for all the world as if each had a 

 couple of attendant butterflies always fluttering just a little 

 above it. At last, while I was lying motionless, half in and 

 half out of a puddle on the rocks, one of them came and 

 hovered about close to me, and I then got the solution of the 

 puzzle. The butterflies were two streamers, each of which 



