Iviii 



long. 82° 30', at an elevation of 17,130 feet, and a Hoopoe 

 {Upupa epops), shot on the 28th of July, 1897, in lat. 35° 20'^ 

 long. 88° 30', at an altitude of 16,090 feet. 



Mr. H. Saunders made some remarks upon a recent visit 

 to Ireland, in company with Mr. R. J. Ussher, and stated 

 that there did not seem to be any danger of the extermination 

 of the Peregrine or the Chough in the south and vrest. 

 Eagles ^rere becoming scarce in the west, chiefly owing to 

 poison laid out for foxes and hooded-crows. A considerable 

 number of White Wagtails [Motacilla alba) passed along 

 Killala Bay early in ]May, and an adult, with cotton-grass in 

 its bill, was observed by Messrs. Ussher, Warren^ and 

 Saunders on June 10th, near Belmullet, co. Mayo. 



The Hon. Walter Rothschild sent for exhibition some 

 very interesting photographs of places and episodes of bird- 

 life in the Galapagos Islands, which had been taken by 

 the naturalists attached to the recent expedition to the 

 Archipelago. 



Dr. R. BowDLER Sharps gave a short account of his 

 recent visit to the Smolen Islands in Northern Norway^ and 

 exhibited some interesting specimens of the eggs of Lams 

 camis ; also the photographs he had taken of the different 

 islands and the nests of the birds found thereon. 



!Mr. W. P. Pycraft made a communication concerning the 

 avian " mesopterygoid ■" of W. K. Parker. This, he showed, 

 did not represent a mesopterygoid, but was reoUy a segmen- 

 tation of the anterior end of the pterygoid, which, running 

 forward along the internal border of the posterior end of 

 the palatine, terminates over the posterior extremity of the 

 vomer, with which it is often in actual contact. This is the 

 permanent condition of these bones in the Ratitce, where, 

 however, the anterior end of the pterygoid does not segment 

 otr from the main body of the bone. In tlie Carinatde, later 



