240 Letters , Extracts from Correspondence , Notices, fyc. 
years become quite extinct, having been destroyed by the cats 
which had gone wild and infested the island. But, from a letter 
addressed by Mr. John C. Williams, H.B.M. Consul for the 
Navigator Islands, to Mr. G. Sprigg, Secretary of the Acclima¬ 
tization Society of Melbourne, we learn that Mr. Williams had, 
after several years of unsuccessful efforts, managed to procure a 
single living example of this bird, and was intending to convey 
it to Sydney when he next visited the antipodean metropolis. 
Recent letters from Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, who has 
greatly interested himself in the rediscovery of this bird, also 
mention that a correspondent of his, who visited the Navi¬ 
gator Islands in November last, had ascertained that, although 
the bird was now totally extinct in Upolu, a few were still to be 
found in the island of Sawaii, the largest and most mountainous 
of the group, and that he (Dr. Bennett) had great hopes of being 
able to procure living specimens for the Zoological Society of 
London. 
Mr. E. L. Layard has left New Zealand some months since, 
and returned to his old quarters at Cape Town, where he has 
received an appointment as one of the British Commissioners for 
the suppression of the Slave-trade. Mr. Layard has recom¬ 
menced his labours in the South African Museum, and just 
issued the first portion of a catalogue of the collection, relating 
to the Mammals. We have received from him some very 
interesting ornithological notes collected in New Zealand and 
during his voyage home, which we propose to publish in our 
next Number. 
Another of our Honorary Members, Mr. Edward Blyth, 
Curator of the Museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, has 
just returned to England after more than twenty-one years' 
residence in Calcutta. We trust that his health, which has 
suffered much of late years, will be quickly re-established by 
the change of climate. 
