Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, fyc. Ill 
ruination, that the whole of them (with the possible exception of 
Iolama frontalis) are known in Europe, and have nearly all been 
previously described. 
The new edition of the f Mammals and Birds of the United 
States Exploring Expedition under Commodore Wilkes/ by 
Mr. Cassin, has just been received in this country. We hope 
hereafter to be able to give a full notice of this important work. 
XI .—Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, fyc. 
(Plate III.) 
We are happy to be able to state that letters have been received 
from Mr. Wallace, dated Ternate, September 2nd, announcing 
his safe return from New Guinea about a fortnight before that 
time. Mr. Wallace gives by no means a favourable account of 
Havre-Dorey as a collecting-place, and says that he has never 
made a voyage “ so disagreeable, expensive, and unsatisfactory 
as that now completed.” He suffered greatly from illness and 
from bad and insufficient food, and was only just sufficiently 
recovered to work at cleansing and packing his collections. His 
servants suffered as much as himself, two or three of them were 
always sick, and one of his hunters died of dysentery. Not only 
was he unable to procure any of the rarer Paradise-birds himself 
at this spot, but he could not even purchase a single skin of 
them. “It is certain,” says Mr Wallace, “ that all but the two 
common yellow species ” (Paradisea apoda and P. papuana) “ are 
very rare, even in the places where the natives get them, for you 
may see hundreds of the common species to perhaps one of the 
rarer sorts. I sent two of my servants with seven natives a 
voyage of 100 miles to the most celebrated place for birds—- 
Amberbabei—mentioned by Lesson, and after twenty days they 
brought me back nothing but two of P. papuana and one of 
P. regia.” He goes on to say, “ My only hope now lies in 
Waigiou, where I shall probably go next year, and try for 
P. rubra and P. superba. Even of P. papuana I have not many, 
as my boys had to shoot them all themselves. I got nothing 
from the natives at Dorey. You will ask why I did not try 
somewhere else, when I found Dorey so bad. The simple 
