1874.] MR. J. E. HARTING ON THE CHILIAN LAPWING. 449 



This letter is superscribed : — 



" To y e right woo r my most Louinge brother S r Edward Altham 

 Dwelling at marke hall in Essex 



" Per a frend whome god preserue. 



" Leaue this at one william watson's House in y e minories a gun- 

 smith to be sente as aboue saide./" 



As to the genuineness of these letters there can be no suspicion. 

 Dr. Wilmot tells me that they form part of a correspondence be- 

 tween various members of the Altham family which a few years ago 

 came into his charge as executor to the will of a lady connected with 

 that family, that they have doubtless been always in safe keeping, 

 and that they have never been in the hands of a dealer. The two 

 letters mentioning the Dodo have been shown by me to my friend 

 Mr. Bradshaw, the Librarian of the University of Cambridge, well 

 known as a skilful palaeographer, who, from the evidence of the 

 handwriting, paper, and other indicia, chiefly appreciated by experts, 

 declares them to be of the period to which their dates assign them. 



Whether this Dodo reached England alive there is nothing to 

 show. The only letter in the correspondence from Edward Altham 

 to Emanuel is dated 3 January, 1628, or six months before the 

 bird was shipped from Mauritius. Emanuel died in the fort of 

 Armagon, on the coast of Coromandel, in 1635, having, in his last 

 illness, had "all his p'ticular bookes of accompts and many other 

 wrightings " burnt in his presence, as testified by a document to 

 that effect, signed by four witnesses and now in the collection. I 

 cannot find the name of Altham among the " Principall Benefactors " 

 to the 'Musaeum Tradescantianum' (1656), where Herbert's name, 

 on the contrary, does occur ; but, as is well known, Sir Ham on Le 

 Strange saw a live Dodo exhibited in London about 1638, and by 

 1634 a specimen had been given to the Anatomy School at Oxford* 



8. On the Lapwing of Chili. 

 By J. E. Harting, F.L.S., F.Z.S. 



[Eeceived June 15, 1874.] 



During the past few months a considerable number of specimens 

 of the Lapwing of Chili, chiefly collected by Mr. Reed, have passed 

 through my hands ; and a tolerably good series is now before me. 



On comparing these specimens with others from different locali- 

 ties on the eastern side of South America, as Cayenne, Bahia, and 

 Rio, a marked difference is observable between them in point of 

 size, the western bird being so very much larger and more robust 

 than the eastern form. 



Vanellus cayennensis, Gmelin, from Cayenne, was described by 

 him as " Vanello minor ; " and if it is not invariably less than 

 Vanellus cristatus, with which he compared it, the specimens 



* Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, (ser. 2) iii. pp. 136, 137. 



