198 
Lettersj Announcements, ^c. 
North-American continent. Exceptions to a theory like 
Mr. Wallace's cannot but be numerous j and it would be un¬ 
reasonable to expect otherwise. But we doubt much if the 
exceptions so preponderate as to leave no ground for believing 
in the existence of a substratum of truth in the suggestions 
Mr. Wallace has put forward to account for the peculiarities 
of the nidification of the many birds that certainly do conform 
to the generalizations he has laid down. 
Amongst the General Notes (p. 37) Mr. Ridgway adds 
the three following Palaearctic birds to the North-American 
fauna— Parus cinctus, Syrnium lapponicum, and Surnia ulula, 
specimens of all of which were obtained at St. MichaePs, 
Norton Sounds Alaska^ by Mr. Lucien M. Turner, together 
with a considerable number of other skins. 
34. Godwin-Austen on new Birds from the Naga Hills and 
Assam, 
[Descriptions of supposed new Birds from the Naga Hills and Eastern 
Assam. By Lt.-Col. H. H. Godwin-Austen. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist, 
ser. 4, vol. xx. p. 519.] 
The two new birds described in this paper are Turdinus 
nagaensis, from the Eastern Naga hills, an ally of T. garoensis ; 
and Staphidia plumbeiceps, from Sadya, Eastern Assam, a 
close ally of torqueola, Swinh. 
XVII.— Letters, Announcements, ^c. 
We have received the following letters, addressed to the 
Editors of ^ The Ibis ; ^— 
Gentlemen, —In the number of ^ The Ibis ^ for April 
1877^ which has just reached me, there is a Note on 
two Birds from the Fiji Islands/^ by Count Salvadori, in 
which he shows that my name for the little Rhipidura of 
those islands cannot stand, and he does me the honour to 
rename it after me. I thank him for his kindness, and am 
quite ready to accept his dictum in this case. As is well 
known to you, my wandering life has precluded my carrying 
about a library; and I am always ready to give way in 
matters of nomenclature. 
With respect, however, to my statement that the colo- 
