236 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Travels,' Atkinson's ' Amoor-land,' Emerson Tennent's ( Ceylon,' and the 

 same author's 'Wild Elephant,' Baldwin's ' African Hunting,' Col. Walter 

 Campbell's * Indian Journal,' Bates's ' Naturalist on the Amazon,' and 

 Wallace's ' Malay Archipelago '; while many beautiful full-page plates from 

 his pencil adorn the works of Lewis Lloyd, A. E. Knox, Henry Stevenson, 

 Philip Gosse, Canon Tristram, Professor Newton, and the Duke of Argyll. 

 Nor should we omit to notice his ' Life and Habits of Wild Animals,' 

 which appeared in 1874, illustrated from his designs, engraved by Whymper, 

 with descriptive letterpress by D. G. Elliot." 



Mr. J. Arthur Thomson, Extramural Lecturer on Zoology in Edin- 

 burgh, has been appointed to succeed the late Prof. Alleyne Nicholson as 

 Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen. 



Our contributor Mr. F. Coburn has recently written, in the ' Birming- 

 ham Daily Post,' on the subject of the Public Natural History Collection in 

 Birmingham, which included, or rather consisted of, the collection of speci- 

 mens formed by the late Dr. Sands Cox. " The loss the city has sustained 

 through not possessing a properly appointed natural history museum, pre- 

 sided over by a competent curator, at the time when this great collection 

 was handed over to the custody of our authorities, is absolutely irreparable, 

 and the fate which has befallen the bulk of that collection forms one of the 

 strongest arguments which could be advanced for the establishment of a 

 museum, for there are still a few gems left in that collection which ought 

 to be saved. This collection must have cost its founder almost a fabulous 

 sum of money, for it was peculiarly rich in forms which were most difficult 

 to procure in those days. The collection of British birds was a very fair 

 one, but its greatest value lay in the African, Indian, Australian, New 

 Zealand, and New Guinea forms, some of which are now totally extinct, 

 while others are on the verge of extermination." 



Amongst its present treasures is the Nestor productus, or Phillip Island 

 Parrot. This " is one of the greatest treasures which any museum in the 

 world can hope to possess, as it is now generally admitted to be totally 

 extinct ; and, according to Professor Newton (' Dictionary of Birds,' p. 224), 

 only about twelve skins, exclusive of the Birmingham specimen, are known 

 to exist in the world. Thus it becomes a far greater rarity than even the 

 Great Auk, a specimen of which was recently purchased by the Edinburgh 

 Museum for, I think, 350 guineas, this being considered a very low figure. 

 There are over sixty skins of the Great Auk known to exist, against about 

 a dozen of Nestor productus. Its great value, therefore, is apparent at 



