Letters, Notes and Extracts. 515 
American birds formed by Mr. C. H. Aiken has become the 
property of the Colorado College Museum. The collection 
includes over 5000 specimens, embracing examples of about 
500 species and subspecies, and is especially rich in examples 
from the States of Colorado and Arizona and the Rocky 
Mountains. Mr. Aiken (a well-known taxidermist of Colorado 
Springs) has been at work forming it for the last thirty-five 
years, and has succeeded in making it the most complete 
collection of the birds of Colorado that has yet been brought 
together. It contains specimens of about 250 of the 380 
species that have been ascribed to the avifauna of the 
State, and has been consulted by several authorities who 
have written on birds. It is of course of great importance to 
science that such a collection, formed by one of the best 
authorities on the birds of Colorado, should be deposited in 
some public institution in the State; and General Palmer’s 
liberality has enabled this to be done. It has been arranged 
that a complete set of representatives of the species met 
with in Colorado shall be mounted and arranged for public 
inspection, while the bulk of the series remains “in skin,” 
and will be placed in cabinets for the use of students. 
A new Work on the Petrels and Albatroses.—The Petrels 
and Albatroses were always among the favourite groups of 
the late Osbert Salvin, and the excellent account of the 
Tubinares in the 25th volume of the ‘Catalogue of Birds in 
the British Museum’ was his handiwork. No opportunity 
was ever lost of obtaining desirable specimens of the Petrel 
family for the Salvin-Godman Collection, which is now in- 
corporated with that of the British Museum. To illustrate 
the valuable series thus formed, Messrs. Salvin and Godman 
had a large number of figures of the different species drawn 
on stone by Keulemans, but unfortunately Salvin did not 
live to write the letterpress for his projected work. This 
has now been undertaken by our President, Dr. Godman, 
who hopes to be able to publish the ‘Monograph of the 
Petrels’ (with about one hundred plates) in four parts, the 
first to be issued before the end of the year. 
