Letters. Extracts, and Notes. 
383 
supplied of the habits of all these fine birds and of the 
adventures of the author and his friends in their forays on 
their nesting-places. Excellent and most characteristic 
pictures are given of all of them. 
We are particularly pleased to have such full details as to the 
nesting of the Black Vulture ( Vultur monachus ) and White¬ 
shouldered Eagle ( Aquila adalberti) . The latter is the Spanish 
representative of the Imperial Eagle of Eastern Europe, and 
though its eggs are usually “ white with a few faint 
rufous marks/' Col. Verner, in February 1878, obtained some 
eggs of this species “ richly clouded with purple and 
blotched with rufous-brown/’ So abnormal were they 
that the late Henry Seebohm, who was a great collector 
of birds’-eggs, tried to persuade Col. Verner to alter the 
labels on them to a Golden Eagle,” eggs of which they 
certainly closely resembled. But the Colonel was firm in 
his refusal to yield to this suggestion, having himself taken 
the specimens. 
We must now close our remarks on this excellent piece 
of work. It is not, of course, a strictly scientific book, and 
does not contain a learned description, even of a new 
subspecies! But we have read every word of it ourselves 
and advise all who are interested in birds to do the same. 
XVII.— Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 
We have received the following letters addressed “ To the 
Editors of ‘ The Ibis ' ” 
Sirs, —Two young birds of Parmoptila woodhousii lately 
examined are younger than that figured in the last number 
of * The Ibis/ The little wattles at the gape in these 
specimens are very conspicuous, being quite white, while 
the margin of the skin on which they are situated is black. 
When the mouth is opened wide and the skin at the gape 
stretched, the open mouth appears to be bordered on each 
side by a row of white beads, strung, far apart, on a black 
string. The inside of the mouth, also, which is whitish in 
