5 79 
Letters , Extracts, and Notes . 
Mr. Mervyn G. Palmer, and a portion of the collection 
made by the late Mr. Hoffmans on the Rio Madeira. 
Besides these, other contributions were received from 
Cayenne, Venezuela, Argentina, and Peru, and 636 skins 
from Lower Amazonia, amongst which were fourteen ex¬ 
amples of the brilliant Pipra opalizans and other rarities. 
Army Manoeuvres in the New Forest .—An influentially 
signed memorial has been prepared with reference to the 
military manoeuvres in the New Forest. The signatories 
point out that May and June are exactly those months of 
the whole year in which non-disturbance is of vital im¬ 
portance to the birds, insects, and plants which give to the 
New Forest its unique interest not only for men of science, 
but for the increasing numbers of their fellow-countrymen 
who take an interest in Natural History. The damage done 
by bodies of troops during this period must inevitably result 
in a destruction of the wild life of this area that can never 
again be repaired. While, therefore, they recognise on 
patriotic grounds that manoeuvres must be held, they express 
the wish that wild tracts of the country other than the New 
Forest might be utilised for the purpose; but, if this cannot 
be, they desire to place on record their earnest hope that 
future manoeuvres may at any rate be deferred until after 
July 15, when less harm would be done. 
The letter is signed by Lord Avebury, Sir Archibald 
Geikie (President of the Royal Society), Sir E. Ray Lan- 
kester, l)r. Sidney Harmer, Hr. Alfred Russel Wallace, 
Sir Edmund Loder, Hr. Chalmers Mitchell, Sir Joseph 
Hooker, Hr. H. H. Scott (President of the Linnean Society), 
Professor Sydney Vines, Professor Poulton, Hr. P. L. Sclater, 
Mr. Henry Elwes, Mr. E. G. Meade-Waldo, Mr. J. G. Mil¬ 
lais, Mr. Eric Parker, Mr. J. E. Harting, and a large number 
of Members of the Zoological and Linnean Societies and of 
the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.— f The Field/ 
June 10th, 1911, p. 1149. 
