774 
Letters , Extracts , and Notes. 
passed a short time in the plains, where Pea-fowl and 
Jungle-fowl were met with. From Calcutta they steamed 
1700 miles south to Singapore, and established a second base 
in that famous emporium, whence they made excursions to 
Borneo, Sumatra,. Java, and the Malay States. Thus they 
obtained information, and in many cases living specimens, 
of Lophura , Acomus and Argus } and, rarest of all, of the 
little-known wattled Lobiophasis of Borneo and even of 
the very rare Rheinardtius. In Burmah they penetrated 
700 miles north, nearly up to the Chinese borders, and 
found some of the most interesting specimens of the entire 
trip. 
Returning to Singapore the travellers took ship for a new 
sphere of action in China, where, after much toil and trouble, 
Eared-Pheasants (Crossoptilon) besides several species of 
true Pheasants (Phasianus) were obtained. The last field 
of work was Japan, where the birds were comparatively 
accessible. 
The expedition reached New York on their return home 
on May 27th, 1911, after travelling fifty-two thousand miles, 
and spending seventeen months in their search for Pheasants, 
in which, we must all allow, they were wonderfully successful. 
Besides masses of notes and photographs, several hundred 
skins of the more interesting birds were brought home. 
The Report of the National Museum, U.S.A., for 1910.— 
The principal accessions of birds in 1909-10 were from 
East Africa and Java. Next in importance was a collection 
from Polynesia made by Dr. C. H. Townsend during one of 
the early Pacific cruises of the steamer ‘ Albatross/ of which 
he was then the naturalist. It comprises 391 specimens and 
examples of about 85 species, many of which are new to the 
Museum or were previously represented only by old and faded 
specimens. The types of three species of Swiftlets ( Collocalia ) 
are included, and there is a good specimen of the rare Sand- 
piper } Mchmorhynchus cancellatus , which had been reported as 
extinct. Thirty-nine birds and one nest from East Borneo 
and the islands of the Java Sea, included a Pheasant, 
