Letters , Extracts, and Notes. 
761 
Indian palaeontologists to the importance of keeping a good 
look out for the fossil remains of this group of birds. 
Yours &c., 
Edward Bidwell. 
Sirs, — My collector, Mr. J. P. Rogers, has sent me from 
the Tinami Gold Fields, Northern Territory, a skin of 
Aphelocephala nigricincta (Mathews, Hand-1. B. Austral, 
p. 87), which he obtained on March 27th, 1910. This locality 
is 700 miles north of Missionary Plains, Macdonald Ranges, 
Central Australia, where the type of the species was obtained 
by Mr. G. A. Keartland. 
Mr. A. J. North described this bird as Xerophila nigri¬ 
cincta in ‘The Ibis ’ of 1895 (p. 340). He also figured it 
in the f Report of the Horn Scientific Expedition/ Aves, 
plate vii. (1896). The nests and eggs are described in the 
same Report (p. 83). 
This is the first record of this species since it was described 
fifteen years ago, and it is also from a new locality. 
The soft parts are : “ Bill leaden-brown ; iris white ; feet 
and tarsi leaden-blue.” 
The stomach contained fragments of beetles and seeds, as 
well as a little grit. 
I am. Sirs, yours &c., 
Langley Mount, Gregory M. Mathews. 
Watford, 
August 3rd, 1910. 
Sirs, —Readers of ‘The Ibis’ will, I think, be interested 
to know that in our lagoons last spring was shot an adult 
female of the Shoveller ( Spatula clypeata) wholly white. 
This bird was seen for several days on the wing at all hours, 
beating up and down over the large salt-marshes which lie in 
the Province of Padua; but, owing to its excessive shyness, it 
was always far out of shot, and people'were unable to secure 
it. But on the morning of 14th of March last an ardent 
sportsman, Dr. Albert Guillion Mangilli, had the good fortune 
to kill it in the Yalle Sacche di Millecampi. It is a rather 
