184 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



Anyhow this skin iidds a new and interesting species to the 

 Pahearctic Fanna, and it is, so far as T know, the first summer 

 specimen of Meryus squamatus on record. I will do my best 

 to obtain fuller information about this little-known bird next 

 season. 



I am. Sirs, 



Yours &c., 



■\Vesoiil)or!?, Estlion'ia, S. A. BuTURLIX. 



liu.'^sia. 



[This is a rare Inrd of great interest, first discovered by 

 Gould in 1801. In the collection made by Capt. Wingate 

 in South China in lf-'98 (which was described by Mr. Ogilvie- 

 Grant in this Journal for 1900) there was a fine pair of 

 this Merganser (see 'Ibis,' 1900, p. 602, pi. xii.). Thes« 

 specimens are now in the British Museum, as is also Gould's 

 original type. — Edd.] 



Sirs, — I see that on page 730 of vol. iv. 9th series, 1910, 



of ' The Ibis,' in a notice of the ' Annals of Scottish Natural 



History,' you refer to a paper by me in the latter, 



I wish to point out to you that Loch Martnaham is in 



Ayrslnre, not Dumfriesshire, and that the American Bittern 



is alleged to have been shot there in iSJf.S, not 1898. 



I am, Sirs, 



Yours &c., 



Capenoch, TlKirnhill, TIuGH S. GLADSTONE. 



Dumfriesshire. 

 Nov. 5tli, 1910. 



Sirs, — About twenty years ago, the late Mr. Howard 

 Sauiulers told me that he had found an unrecorded egg of 

 the Great Auk (Alca impennis) in a small museum in France. 

 When, in 1894, the Earl of Gainsborough was residing at 

 Dinard, Mr. Saunders informed him of this egg being at 

 Dinan and at the same time gave me the information as to 

 its locnlity. Lord Gainsborough tells me that when he saw 



