110 President's Address. 



Javarri and the Amazon. In 1858, too, there occurred the 

 sale of the great collection of Dr. Lidth de Jeude in Holland, 

 and the Museum secured a specimen of the Great Auk 

 (Plautus impennis) . An example of the whale-headed Stork 

 (Balceniceps rex) was also purchased. 



Collections also arrived from Mr. Wallace in 1858, and 

 150 birds from the Key and Am Islands, and 58 from 

 Celebes were purchased for the Museum. In 1859 another 

 collection from the Fiji Islands, and other localities in the 

 Pacific, collected by Dr. F. M. Rayner, was presented by the 

 Lords of the Admiralty. Ninety-one birds from Vancouver 

 Island were presented by Dr. Lyall, of H.M.S. " Plumper." 

 John Macgillivray was still collecting in the Pacific Islands, 

 and sent 22 birds from New Caledonia. 



Five hundred and ninety-eight birds from Nepal were 

 presented by Mr. Hodgson. 



Eighty-three birds from Batchiaii, Amboina, and New Gruinea, 

 were acquired from Mr. Wallace's collection, 33 sets of eggs 

 and nests from Natal, collected by Mr. T. Ayres, and 88 birds, 

 including several types, from the Massena Collection, were 

 purchased of M. Parzudalri, a well-known natural history 

 agent in Paris. 



We have now arrived at the most momentous period in the 

 history of British Ornithology, for in the year 1859 the 

 1 British Ornithologists' Union ' was founded, and the 

 ' Ibis ' had appeared. The ' Journal fur Ornithologie,' 

 founded by Professor Cabanis, had already flourished for six 

 years, and has since celebrated its jubilee, but the position of 

 the ' Ibis ' as the centre of British ornithological work has 

 never been called in question. The founders of the ' Ibis ' 

 consisted of a small number of college friends who happened 

 to meet first at Canon Tristram's house at Castle Eden, and 

 afterwards in the rooms of Professor Newton, at Cambridge. 

 Even these men, however, celebrated as they have all become, 

 could scarcely have expected to see their projected journal 

 rise to the height of fame and usefulness to which it has 

 attained. At first it was only conducted at considerable 

 expense, and the hands of the founders had often to be put 

 in their pockets to find the money for carrying it on. 



