774 Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



passed a short time in tlie plains, wlicre Pea-fowl and 

 Jungle-fowl were met with. From Calcutta they steamed 

 1700 miles south to Singapore, and established a second base 

 in that famous emporium, whence they made excursions to 

 Borneo, Sumatra, Java, and the Malay States. Thus they 

 obtained information, and in many cases living specimens, 

 of Lophura, Acomus and AryuSy and, rarest of all, of the 

 little-known wattled Lobiophasis of Borneo and even of 

 the very rare Rlieinardtius. In Burmah they penetrated 

 700 miles north, nearly up to the Chinese borders, and 

 found some o£ the most interesting specimens of the entire 

 trip. 



Returning to Singapore the travellers took ship for a new 

 sphere of action in China, where, after much toil and trouble, 

 Eared-Pheasants (^Crossojititon) besides several species of 

 true Pheasants (Fhasianus) were obtained. The last field 

 of work was Japan, where the birds were comparatively 

 accessible. 



The expedition reached New York on their return home 

 on May 27th, 1911, after travelling fifty-two thousand miles, 

 and spending seventeen months in their search for Pheasants, 

 in which, Ave must all allow, they were wonderfully successful. 

 Besides masses of notes and photographs, several hundred 

 skins of the more interestin": birds were brought home. 



The Report of the National Museum, U.S.A., for 1910. — 

 The principal accessions of birds in 1909-10 were from 

 East Africa and Java. Next in importance was a collection 

 from Polynesia made by Dr. C. H. Townsend during one of 

 the early Pacific cruises of the steamer ' Albatross,'' of which 

 he was then the naturalist. It comprises 391 specimens and 

 examples of about 85 species, many of which are new to the 

 Museum or were previously represented only by old and faded 

 specimens. The types of three species of Swif tlets {CoUocalia) 

 are included, and there is a good specimen of the rare Sand- 

 \nper,y^chmorh2/nchus cancellatus, which had been reported as 

 extinct. Thirty-nine birds and one nest from East Borneo 

 and the islands of the Java Sea, included a Pheasant, 



