Letters, Notes, Extracts, fyc. 223 



associated Mr. R. E. Dent, late of the same regiment, the 

 Hon. Gerald Legge, M.B.O.U., and Mr. A. F. R. Wollaston 

 as Medical Officer. Mr. Douglas Carruthers accompanies 

 them as Taxidermist. The party will proceed to Mombasa 

 and take the railway and steamer across Lake Victoria to 

 Entebbe. Thence they will probably go by land direct to 

 Ruwenzori and select a convenient spot as the basis of their 

 operations. 



Expedition to the Galapagos. — We learn from 'The Condor' 

 (vol. vii. p. 148) that a new expedition was sent by the 

 Californian Academy of Sciences, during the past summer, 

 to the Galapagos Islands, to be absent nineteen months. 

 The expedition was organised through the efforts of the 

 Director of the Museum, Mr. Leverett Mills Loomis, who 

 has spared neither time nor pains to bring it to a suc- 

 cessful conclusion. The personnel includes Mr. R. H. Beck 

 (Chief), Messrs. E. W. Gifford and J. S. Hunter (birds and 

 mammals), Mr. A. W. Stewart (plants), Messrs. J. 11. Stevin 

 and Ernest King (reptiles), and other collectors. They 

 go in a two-masted schooner-yacht, purchased from the 

 Navy Department, and the equipment is stated to include 

 practically everything that such an expedition can possibly 

 need . 



The members will make special efforts to secure a very 

 complete collection of birds, while their long stay in the 

 Islands will enable them to ascertain many biological facts 

 of importance, as well as to gather data concerning tem- 

 perature and rainfall, and the effects of these on distribution. 

 They will probably visit Socorro, Cocos, and other Pacific 

 Islands on the route out. 



Meeting of the South-African Ornithologists' Union. — The 

 second Annual Meeting of the S. A. O. U. was held in 

 the Transvaal Technical Institute at Johannesburg on 

 August 30th, 1905, at 5 p.m. Mr. W. L. Sclater, M.A., 

 F.Z.S. (President), was in the Chair, and a number of 



