ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF TIMOR-LAUT. 225 
parts are very good. I am now engaged in packing all up for despatch, 
and hope to send them off soon. 
‘My intention is to return to Timor-laut in three days more, if my 
health will permit, the Government steamer leaving then for the Tenimber 
Islands. I shall settle in some quieter spot than Ritabel. A full report 
of this interesting country will be sent to you by next mail. One of the 
singular facts I found is the immense herds of wild buffalo existing on 
the mainland of the island. They must have, of course, been introduced, 
but by whom and how long ago is an interesting question. I was unable 
to get a specimen, unfortunately. 
‘My wife, who accompanied me, aided me greatly, so that, when I 
was down with fever—and the fever is of extreme severity—work was 
still able to go on. 
“J am, yours very truly, 
(Signed) ‘Henry O. Forszs.’ 
In the month of January following a box containing seventy bird- 
skins was received from Mr. Forbes, with the note, ‘ This first instalment 
of birds is a rough selection, which, probably, may contain new species.’ 
The collection was examined by Mr. Sclater, who communicated an 
account of it to the meeting of the Zoological Society on February 20. 
The species were fifty-five in number, sixteen of which were described in 
the paper as new to science. ‘The general facies of the avifauna, as thus 
indicated, was stated to be decidedly Papuan, with a slight Timorese 
element, evidenced by the occurrence of certain species of Geocichla and 
Erythrura, while the new one (Striz sororcula) was apparently a diminutive 
form of a peculiar Australian species.’ 
About the same time your Committee received from Mr. Forbes a 
detailed report of his proceedings in Timor-laut. This was an extremely 
interesting document, but dealt principally with ethnographical details. 
Your Committee, therefore, decided that it should be communicated at 
once to the Anthropological Institute; and this Mr. John Evans, Treasurer 
of the Royal Society and Vice-President of the Institute, very kindly 
undertook to do. The paper was read at the meeting on March 13, and 
has since been published in the ‘ Journal’ of the Institute. 
In February the bulk of Mr. Forbes’s collections reached Kew in four 
‘eases. They contained an extremely complete ethnographical collection, 
a further collection of birds, a collection of twelve crania and specimens 
of human hair, and a miscellaneous zoological collection. Your Committee 
decided that a selection from the ethnographical collection should be 
handed to Mr. Franks, keeper of the Department of Ethnography in the 
British Museum; that the additional birds should be examined by Mr. 
Sclater, and that the miscellaneous zoological collections should be sent 
to the zoological department of the British Museum to be selected from. 
This was accordingly done. <A series of the ethnographical specimens 
was sent to the meeting at the Anthropological Institute to illustrate the 
reading of Mr. Forbes’s report, and a description of these drawn up by 
Mr. C. H. Read is printed as an appendix to the paper in the ‘ Journal’ of 
the Institute. Professor Flower, who presided on the occasion, also stated 
that ‘the results of a cursory examination of the twelve crania which 
Mr. Forbes had collected were that eight were brachycephalic, and of 
eee edly Malay type; one was dolichocephalic, prognathous, and with 
Q 
