Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, fyc. 469 
week after next, if the Canicular holds out fine. This expedition, 
if it comes off, will, I expect, result in something satisfactory. 
Anyhow the scenery will repay the undertaking, as being per¬ 
haps the most magnificent which Central America can produce.” 
To the Editor of The Ibis . 
Kilmory, Lochgilphead, N.B. 
Dear Sir,— On going last month to my father's property 
in the Hebrides (North Uist), the keeper told me that at the 
end of March 1859 he had shot a Falcon that he did not know. 
Unfortunately he only wounded it; and when he found it after¬ 
wards, the gulls and crows, which abound there, had made a sad 
mess of it. He kept the wings, tail and feet, and skull, and I 
think there is no doubt it is F. islandicus or grcenlandicus. I 
heard the other day of the occurrence of the Shore Lark ( Alauda 
alpestris) in Scotland; I am to get place and date, and will send 
them to you. A Pintail Duck ( Dafila caudacuta ) was shot this 
spring in North Uist. It is rare in the Hebrides from what I 
hear: the keeper had not seen one before. The Falcon was 
shot on the N.W. side of the island; but, with a bird of such 
power of flight, this does not say much as to what quarter it 
came from. 
I remain. 
Yours truly, 
John W. P. Orde. 
Mr. Gurney has favoured us with a number of the San Fran¬ 
cisco Herald, which contains a notice by Mr. A. S. Taylor of 
Monterey of the discovery of the egg of the Californian Vulture 
(Cathartes calif or nianus). Mr. Gurney expects to receive the 
egg in question very shortly. The following is an extract from 
Mr. Taylor's article :— 
“ One of the rancheros of the Carmelo, in hunting among 
the highest peaks of the Santa Lucia range during the last 
week of April present, disturbed two Condors from their nests, 
and, at great risk of breaking his neck, brought away a young 
bird six or seven days old, and also an egg—the egg from one 
