514 Letters, Notes and Extracts. 
The specimens obtained on the Ruwenzorian Expedition, 
about 2,500 in number, are being examined by Mr. Ogilvie- 
Grant, who was, in fact, the planner of the expedition. 
Some 30 of the species represented have already been charac- 
terized as new in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ 
Club. 
Return of the Alexander-Gosling Expedition—Our last 
published news of the Alexander-Gosling Trans-African 
Expedition (see ‘ Ibis,’ 1906, p. 615) left the sole survivor 
struggling slowly eastwards against the rapid flow of the 
Welle River and its affluents. We are now happily able to 
record that all remaining difficulties have been overcome, 
and that Mr. Boyd Alexander is safe at home and in good 
health. He gave an excellent account of his lengthy and 
adventurous journey from the Niger by Lake Chad to the 
Nile at the meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on 
May 13th last. As his narrative and map will shortly be 
published in full in the ‘Geographical Journal,’ we need 
not say more on the subject than that early in October last 
year the expedition crossed the water-parting between the 
basins of the Congo and the Nile, and descending the 
River Yei to Avurra, on the borders of the Anglo-Egyptian 
province of Bahr-el-Ghazal, reached the main stream of 
the Nile at Gaba Shambi. From here to Khartum was 
an easy transit by steamer, and thence Port Sudan was 
reached by the new railway on January 14th, and England 
a fortnight later. 
The collection of Birds made by Mr. Alexander during 
his journey, with the assistance of his excellent taxidermist, 
José Lopez, contains about 2500 skins. Some sixteen new 
species represented in it have already been described in 
the § Bulletin’ of the British Ornithologists’ Club, and 
others will no doubt be found when the series has been 
thoroughly examined. 
The Aiken Collection of North-American Birds.—We are 
informed by Mr. W. L. Sclater that, through the generosity 
of General William J. Palmer, the collection of North- 
