240 Letters, Extracts from Correqiondence, Notices, ^t. 



journey up the Pacific to Russian America, and is now about 

 realizing the expectation under very favourable auspices. He 

 goes out in March with a party of the surveyors of the line 

 of the Russian-American Overland Telegraph Company, to San 

 Francisco, and will thence proceed in a Government steamer 

 direct to Norton Sound and the mouth of the Yukon, so as to 

 arrive there about June. He will have a perfect outfit — six com- 

 panions to aid in collecting — and bids fair to do an enormous 

 business in zoology. He will take six dozen, or more, of egg- 

 drills and pipes, from which you may judge of his ' intentions.' 

 I hope he will happen on the breeding-ground of many rare 

 birds." 



We can only say that this adventurous traveller has our best 

 wishes for his success and safe return. 



Mr. Frederick Godman has lately left this country to pass a 

 few months in the Azores, investigating their Natural History. 

 Some peculiarities of the avifauna of these islands, the south- 

 western outliers of the Palsearctic Region, have been noticed in a 

 former volume of this Journal (Ibis, 1861, p. 400) ; and though, 

 doubtless, the Azorean fauna is very limited with regard to 

 species, we entirely concur in the remarks then made, as to the 

 probability of its being found to be very interesting considered 

 in its relation to the faunas of the neighbouring groups of 

 islands and of the continent. Mr. Godman is accompanied by 

 a collector, for whom we trust plenty of work may be found ; 

 but we believe our friend is well aware that it is often the 

 quality, rather than the quantity, of the species collected that 



is valuable in the present state of science. 

 % 



Though devoted to another branch of zoology, the writings 

 of Mr. W. S. Macleay, the inventor of the ' Quinary System/ 

 had so much influence on ornithology, that the death of this 

 able naturalist, in Austraha, on the 25th of January last, seems 

 to require notice here. We may also mention that Sir Robert 

 Schomburgk, a contributor to the ^ Ibis,' and a man who did 

 much to advance the study of Natural History, died at Berlin 

 on the 11th of March. 



