1869. ] LETTER FROM DR. G. BENNETT. 471 
nees between the Brahmapootra and the Dihong say that the full- 
grown ones are so fierce that it would be impossible to bring them 
alive to Debrooghur. They are seen in pairs, and sometimes in herds 
of twenty or more. They are swift of foot and good climbers. Why 
Jerdon should have excluded this interesting animal from the Indian 
fauna is a puzzle to me; for it is quite as Himalayan as the Brown 
Bear and the Musk-deer, both of which are included in his book.”’ 
The following extracts were read~from a letter addressed to the 
Secretary by Dr. George Bennett, F.Z.S., dated Sydney, June 15th, 
1869 :— 
“The Government steamer ‘Thetis’ having been sent to Lord 
Howe’s Island to investigate a case of homicide, among other gen- 
tlemen interested in natural history, Mr. R. D. Fitzgerald, of the 
Surveyor-General’s department, obtained leave to visit the island. 
To this gentleman I am indebted for the following information, 
more especially for the interesting account of the habits of the 
‘Wood-hen,’ a species of Rail now becoming rapidly extinct, pecu- 
har to Lord Howe’s Island. The ‘Thetis’ left Sydney on the 26th 
of May, arrived on the 29th, and returned to Sydney on the 7th . 
of June, 1869. The island is situated in lat. 31° 30! S., and 
long. 159° E. It is sixteen miles in circumference, 63 miles in 
length, and averages about half a mile in width. The inhabitants 
are about thirty-five, including children. The produce of the island 
is maize, onions, potatoes, and bananas; the soil is rich, and the 
vegetation very luxuriant, among which palms, tree ferns, and the 
banyan fig are most conspicuous. Pigs and Goats run wild on the 
island, the former feeding principally upon the fruit of the palms. 
**Among the birds collected by Mr. Fitzgerald, I recognized spe- 
cimens of Merula vinitincta, Zosterops strenuus, Chaleophaps chry- 
sochlora, and Pachycephala gutturalis. The most interesting bird 
procured, and of which only one was obtained, was the ‘ Wood-hen.’ 
I recollect that in the year 1836 or 1837 the late Alexander 
Macleay, then Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, had several of 
these birds alive, which had been brought to him from Lord Howe’s 
Island; and he at that time expressed an intention of sending them 
to the Linnean and Zoological Societies, but I am not aware whether 
they ever reached their destination. The White Gallinule, figured 
in Phillips’s ‘ Voyage to Botany Bay,’ and found only in Norfolk 
and Lord Howe’s Islands, is now extinct, as it is not seen at either 
of those islands. Mr. Fitzgerald, in the account he gave me, says, 
‘The land birds are not numerous, probably not more than of twelve 
or thirteen distinct species. I observed :—a little Green Pigeon ; 
a Blackbird, having leaf-tossing habits and call-notes of that class 
of birds; a Zosterops, or Silver-eye (of larger size than the species 
common about Sydney); a Pachycephala, or Thick-head, having 
the colonial appellation of ‘‘ Doctor ;” a Rhipidura, or Fly-catcher 
(similar to our Sydney species); a little deanthiza; and a Pachy- 
cephala with black and yellow plumage, seemingly identical with 
P. gutturalis; a species of Kingfisher; a Crow-Shrike (Strepera 
