776 
Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 
of Natural History. As will be seen by bis excellent paper 
(above, p. 581) his observations are quite original and in 
many instances very remarkable, especially as regards the 
tongue-spots in young birds. 
New Inquiry on the Migration of Birds .—We learn from 
f The Times 3 of September 4th that Prof. J. Arthur Thomson 
and Mr. A. Lansborough Thomson, secretary of the Natural 
History Department of Aberdeen University, have issued a 
circular drawing special attention to the work of the 
“ Aberdeen University Bird-Migration Inquiry/’ The 
inquiry, as we know, aims at collecting more definite informa¬ 
tion on migration by the method of placing rings on the 
feet of a large number of birds, in the hope of hearing of 
the subsequent movements of some of them. 
The rings are inscribed with the address a Aberdeen 
University,” and a number (or number and letter combina¬ 
tion) which is different in each case. The rings are to be 
placed on young birds found in the nest, or on any old ones 
that can be captured without injury. The rings, which are 
of aluminium and extremely light, do not inconvenience the 
birds in any way. The marking work is chiefly carried on in 
Scotland, notably in Aberdeenshire, but is not confined to 
that county. The inquiry has the support of Mr. J. A. 
Harvie-Brown., Mr. William Eagle Clarke, Mr. William 
Evans, and other Scottish ornithologists. 
