372 Letters, Notes and Extracts. 
Mr. Oldfield Thomas, and has sent home to the British 
Museum upwards of 3000 bird-skins, besides some nests and 
eges*, Mr. Grant went first to British Namaqualand in 
March 1903, and collected mammals and birds a‘ Klipfontein 
and other places in that district. Returning to Cape Town 
he proceeded to Wakkerstroom in the S.E. Transvaal, where 
he passed March, April, and May 1904. Subsequently 
Mr. Grant visited the Knysna district of the Cape Colony, 
Zululand, and the Zoutpansberg province of the N.H. Trans- 
vaal, and made excellent collections in all these quarters. 
The Mammals of the ‘‘ Rudd Exploration” have been 
described by Mr. Oldfield Thomas in a series of five papers 
published in the P. Z. S. (1904-1906) ; the Birds are still 
waiting for description, which, we trust, will soon be under- 
taken. There are not likely to be many novelties, but the 
list will, no doubt, largely add to the exactly known localities 
of South African birds. 
The Foundation of the B. O. U—The ‘ Proceedings’ of the 
Ornithological Congress of 1905 have reached us too late for 
a proper Notice of their Contents to be inserted in our present 
Number, but there is a statement in the Presidential Address 
which requires immediate correction, as it concerns the . 
Foundation of the Union. ‘The true story was told in the 
preface to our first volume. The statement now made in 
the ‘ Proceedings’ of the Congress (p.110) that “ the founders 
of ‘The Ibis’ consisted of a small number of College friends 
who happened to meet first at Canon Tristram’s house at 
Castle Eden” is quite erroneous as regards the place of 
meeting; and, as Canon Tristram was an Oxford man, the 
expression “ College friends” can hardly be applied to the 
several founders. livery one of the informal gatherings 
which led to the formation in 1858 of the B. O. U. took 
place at Cambridge, and not a single Meeting of any sort 
connected with the affair was held at Castle Eden, though 
undoubtedly Canon Tristram was one of the Founders of 
the Union. 
* See Hist. of the Collections of the Nat. Hist. Department of the 
Brit. Mus. vol. ii. p. 460, 
