380 Letters, Extracts, Announcements, &c. 
vicincta ; purchased. Nineteen skins of rare birds from New 
Caledonia and Loyalty Islands, collected by E. L. Layard, 
Esq., and including the types of eight of the new species 
described by him and Canon Tristram; purchased. Forty- 
eight bones of the extinct Goose of New Zealand (Cnemiornis) ; 
purchased. 
The Birds of Socotra.—Kxamples of about thirty species of 
birds were obtained by Prof. I. B. Balfour during his recent 
expedition to Socotra. These will shortly be described in a 
joint paper by Dr. Hartlaub and Sclater. 
Mr. Ober’s new Expedition to the Antilles —Mr. Lawrence 
kindly informs us that Mr. Ober, the Smithsonian collector, 
has commenced his new expedition to the Lesser Antilles, 
with Saba—hitherto, we believe, unexplored by any natu- 
ralist. Mr. Ober will be away about six months, and will 
endeavour to visit all the islands not previously investigated. 
The Museum Godeffroy.We are pleased to hear that 
negotiations are in progress for the transfer of the Museum 
Godeffroy to the city of Hamburg. In it are to be found by 
far the finest series of the zoological and ethnographical pro- 
ducts of the Pacific islands yet assembled together, including, 
we believe, all the types of the new birds described in the 
thirteen “Hefts” of the ‘Journal des Museum Godeffroy.’ 
It would be a great misfortune to science if these were dis- 
tributed all over the world by the auctioneer’s hammer; so 
that it is much to be hoped that a satisfactory arrangement 
will be come to between the liquidators of the “ Maison Go- 
deffroi”’ and the citizens of Hamburg. 
Eggs of the Great Auk.—Two eggs of the Great Auk (Alca 
impennis), ‘not previously recorded, discovered in an old 
private collection in Edinburgh,’ were recently sold at 
Stevens’s Sale-rooms—one for £105, and the other for 
£107 2s. We are informed that the fortunate purchaser of 
