192 Correspondence. [No. 2, 



second to the king, lie ended his career hy being cruelly murdered, 

 his patron tacitly consenting. 



" I now hurried home. The cremation of the Queen Consort, who 

 died on the 9th of September, was to take place on the 18th of April. 

 Tbe solemnities and ceremonies had already commenced a week pre- 

 viously. The king himself lit the pile — the Governors of nearly all 

 the provinces were present, and the crowd assembled was from 15,000 

 to 16,000 persons — if not more. The king has since made a pil- 

 grimage to Pechaburi to visit the cave, and he has returned. I pre- 

 sume we shall now fall back to our every-day life. 



# # # # # 



" You have perhaps seen already in the papers a notice of the 

 death of M. Mahout, a zealous collector of objects of Natural His- 

 tory, combining with it scientific knowledge. He was a Frenchman 

 by birth, but English naturalists and friends of the science sent him 

 to make collections in Siam, Cambodia, Tonquin, &c. : at the limits 

 of the latter, he fell a victim to jungle-fever. His collections have 

 been brought safely to Bangkok, and forwarded to London. His 

 discoveries were principally grand in serpents, shells, and insects ; and 

 you must have frequently seen notices in the ' Proceedings of the 

 Zoological Society,' &c, of what he found. 



" My brother Richard, who accompanied me during the latter part 

 of my Guiana travels, on account of the Prussian Government, and 

 who is now settled in S. Australia, near Adelaide, has given rather 

 an interesting account of Gould's Leipoa ocellata. Richard purposes 

 to undertake a journey to the Murray district : — farming affairs, it 

 seems, as with the majority of persons once initiated in the life of 

 travelling in the bush, do not agree with him, — nor do they succeed 

 in agricultural pursuits. He writes to me that during the last sis 

 months, taking only each Saturday for such a purpose, he has col- 

 lected about 100 birds, 70 Amphibia, and 40 species of fishes. As 

 far as I understand, from his letter, he labours for the museum at 

 Berlin, and has the patronage of the Professors of Natural History 

 there. 



*ST W W W 



" That bird so interesting to me, the Diardigallus Crawfurdii* 

 seems to belong to the Shan States. One of the Governors of those 



* D. pmlatus, Pr. Eonap. ; D. fasciolatus, Bl., J. A. S. XXVII, 280. 



