Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 387 



concerning the distribution, habits, and nesting (written in 

 an easy and agreeable style) follow. 



Fourteen excellent coloured plates, executed by Mr. 

 Gronvold, illustrate the rarer and less-known species in 

 the present work, besides which there are pictures of some 

 of the antique monuments and a view of the author's 

 encampment, when on the march through the wilds of Tunisia. 

 Two well-drawn maps, such as should always accompany 

 a zoo-geographical work, are likewise given. The paper 

 and printing of the two volumes leave nothing to be desired, 

 and, in fact, we may say, without fear of contradiction, that 

 the 'Birds of Tunisia' is a work quite " up to date," and 

 does the greatest credit to the author and to every one 

 concerned in it. 



XXIV. — Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 



We have received the following letters addressed to ' ' The 

 Editors " :— 



Sirs, — Looking through the volume of 'The Ibis' for 1898, 

 I recently came across (p. 62) Graf von Berlepsch's article 

 on the remarkable Fringilline bird Idiopsar brachyurus, which 

 had then been recently rediscovered by Garlepp. At the 

 time that the article was originally published I was engaged 

 in cataloguing the collection of Birds in the Free Public 

 Museum, Liverpool, and immediately took the opportunity 

 of going over the large Bolivian and Chilian collections 

 made for Lord Derby in the years 1841/46, by the well- 

 known collector Thomas Bridges, which had never been 

 systematically examined. Among them I was so fortunate 

 as to find an unmistakable specimen of the species in 

 question, which, from the date of acquisition, had un- 

 doubtedly been obtained by Bridges at some time prior to 

 1846, in the neighbourhood of La Paz, Bolivia, though the 

 species was not made known to science by Cassin until 1866. 

 The specimen was duly shown to Dr. H. O. Forbes, the 



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