Letters, Notes and Extracts. 741 



country proves to be exceedingly interesting to students of 

 geographical distribution. 



Olfactory Organs of the Kiwi. — At the meeting of the 

 Zoological Society of London on May 29th last, Mr. R. H. 

 Burne, F.Z.S., exhibited, on behalf of Prof. Stewart, some 

 dissections prepared for the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons from material derived from the Society's Gardens. 

 The specimens included the head of a Kiwi (Apteryx man- 

 telli) in sagittal section, shewing the relatively large size of 

 the olfactory parts of the brain and the complexity of the 

 olfactory chamber in that bird. 



The Californian Earthquake. — From a letter addressed to 

 Dr. Finsch by Mr. Walter K. Fisher, of Stanford University 

 (the Editor of ' The Condor ') , we learn that the full force of 

 the shock was felt at that University, the great fault which 

 resulted from the disturbance being only seven miles off. 

 Fortunately most of the buildings wrecked were newly 

 erected, and unoccupied, and the large Zoological Museum 

 escaped with only broken plaster from the ceiling, but the 

 collection in spirit suffered severely. The University, how- 

 ever, had arranged to begin work again in August. Mr. 

 Fisher adds : — " I may say that the greatest loss to science 

 from the earthquake was the total destruction of the fine 

 building of the California Academy of Sciences, including a 

 magnificent collection of birds, plants, insects, and reptiles, 

 together with the scientific library. This library was the 

 only one worthy of the name that we had on the Pacific 

 coast. I believe only about fifty of the rarest books were 

 saved, including, however, a copy of the first series of 

 1 The Ibis.' » 



Is the Kea carnivorous ? — We had supposed that after all 

 that Sir Walter Buller and other good authorities on the 

 birds of New Zealand had written on the carnivorous habits 

 of the Kea (Nestor notabilis) there could be no longer any 



