Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 575 



" Mututa " by tlic natives, is very rarely met with ou the 

 Upper Congo. 



I am, Sirs, 



Yours &c., 



C. E. Hellmayr. 



Zoological Museum, Munich, 

 June 15tli, 1011. 



Sirs, — I read with much interest Mr. Bannerman's letter 

 from Gran Canaria. When in Gran Canaria in May 

 1910, I made a point of studying the bird-life. It was on 

 the 11th of the month that I first saw the Teydean Finches 

 — two male birds — at Teror, a village situated amongst the 

 hills in the east of the island. It was on the mountain side 

 where some fruit-trees were growing, and well below where 

 there were pines. The Finches were sitting very quietly, 

 and they only flew away w^hen 1 approached nearer to get a 

 better view of them. 



I notice in Dr. Godman's ' Monograph of the Petrels ' that 

 he says little of the habits of the Petrel Oceanodroma castro. 

 I had these birds under my observation for a whole day in 

 the Canary seas — the 5th of May, 1910. I first noticed 

 them when about 75 miles off Madeira. Sometimes only 

 one and sometimes four together were in the Avake of the 

 vessel ; they were by no means shy, and frequently came 

 so close that you could see their eyes. They kept flitting 

 athwart the wake of the steamer most of the day ; they 

 had all the action of the House-Martin {Hirundo urbica) 

 and were like magnified forms of it. They never flew 

 more than seven feet or so from the surface of the water; 

 I never saw them alight on the sea. I never heard them 

 making any sound. 



I am, Sirs, 



Yours &c., 



William Serle. 



The Manse, 



Duddingston, Edinburgh, 

 June 13th, 1911. 



