430 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



other four (two cocks and two hens) left the nest about the second week of 

 September, fully fledged, able to fly as strongly as their parents, and able 

 also, in two or three days later, to feed themselves. About the middle of 

 September, finding that the mother bird had commenced to lay again, I 

 removed the two young pairs, which I placed together in a separate cage. 

 This time the hen laid only three eggs, hatched them all, carried out one 

 dead when the nestlings were about a week old, and continued to feed the 

 other two. These left the nest in the first week of November, and proved 

 to be a pair. Now the interesting point with regard to these two results 

 is that in each case the odd bird was carried out dead, and pairs were reared. 

 If this should prove to be invariable in the case of the Cut-throat Finch, it 

 would argue that the parents destroyed the odd birds in order to prevent 

 the disputes which, in other species, are frequently so serious as greatly to 

 retard their increase. That the Cut-throat Finch is very rapidly in a con- 

 dition to breed is certain, for on the morning of October 12th I found that 

 one of my hen birds had laid an egg on the sand of its cage, and during 

 the afternoon of the same day another egg was deposited, presumably by 

 the other young hen. The fou* young birds have been together since 

 their separation from their parents, and therefore have produced eggs 

 when little more than two months old. — Arthur G. Butler (" The 

 Lilies," Beckenham Road, Beckenham). 



Corrections, Zool. 1892.— Page 5, line 8, for "not" read "only"; 

 p. 8, 1. 2, after "nest" insert "on 18th"; p. 8, 1. 8, after "slate-coloured" 

 insert " legs flesh-coloured" ; p. 8, line 33, for " fine" read " flat"; p. 10, 

 1st line, before " very" insert "not"; p. 11, 1. 17, for " Aresbucht" read 

 " Areschlucht " ; p. 12, 1. 18, for " palustris" read " alpestris" ; p. 14, 1. 22. 

 for " Picus" read " Pinus"; p. 30, 1. 21, for "two with four eggs" read 

 " three with four eggs"; p. 229, 1. 16 from bottom, for "egg" read "eye"; 

 p. 265, last line, for " Marishills " read "marisma"; p. 402, 1. 3 ; for 

 " diameter" read " circumference." 



SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



Linnean Society of London. 



Nov. 3, 1892. — Professor Stewart, President, in the chair. 



Mr. W. B. Bottomley was elected. 



The Rev. Prof. Henslow exhibited an instrument used in Egypt for 

 removing the end of the Sycamore Fig, and gave some account of the mode 

 of cultivation. 



Mr. A. Smith Woodward exhibited and made remarks on some 

 supposed fossil Lampreys, Paleospondylui gunni, from the old red sand- 

 stone of Caithness. 



