362 Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, ^c. 



nests were found, containing respectively three and four eggs, 

 which are exactly like the ones first procured thence, which we 

 mentioned in our last number (p. 226). The Nutcracker mys- 

 tery may therefore now be safely regarded as settled. 



When, more than a year ago, we undertook to edit this Journal, 

 it was pressed upon us by some of our friends, whose opinion 

 deservedly carried very great weight, that we should in future, 

 at the end of each volume, insert a diagnostic list of all the 

 species which had been described as new during the preceding 

 year. Our friends urged, and with great truth, that such an 

 addition to the many excellent papers with which we are favoured 

 by some of the best working ornithologists of the day, would 

 make * The Ibis' still more useful to all lovers and students of 

 the science, but especially to those who are resident abroad, and 

 cut off from other sources of information as to what was doing 

 at home. To this application we consented, though well aware 

 not only of the large amount of additional labour which the 

 drawing up of such lists would inflict upon us, but also of the 

 fact that these lists alone would give but a very imperfect notion 

 of the progress of ornithology during the periods to which they 

 would refer; for it has already often happened, and in the present 

 state of our science it must continue to happen still oftener, 

 that the most important discoveries in ornithology consist not 

 merely in the characterizing of new, or apparently new, forms, 

 but rather in th*e bringing together by identification of two or 

 more known species which have been described by difierent 

 authors at different times. The execution then of the first of 

 these objects, however useful its results, while the second and 

 more important one was to be left untouched, would have been 

 very unsatisfactory to us, while the carrying out of both would 

 have swelled this Journal to a bulk not contemplated in our 

 arrangements, and that by the addition of matter which, to some 

 of our readers, would certainly not have been of a very attractive 

 nature. 



It was therefore with great pleasure that a few months since 

 we found that our good friend and contributor, Dr. Albert 

 Giinther of the British Museum, had in view a scheme for the 



