210 
Letters, Announcements, fyc. 
Linota exilipes as a species, although Mr. Seehohm is unable 
to comprehend it. How, after seeing them both in life, he 
could confound them, and write such a careless note on 
them as he has done in f Siberia in Europe/ footnote, 
p. 51, I cannot imagine. 
Yours &c., 
W. E. Brooks. 
Science in Indiana. —The Indiana Academy of Science 
was organized on Dec. 29th, 1885, with the following 
officers:—D. S. Jordan, M.D., President; J. M. Coulter, 
Ph.D., J. P. D. John, D.D., Bev. D. B. Moore, Vice- 
Presidents; Amos W. Butler, Secretary; Prof. O. P. 
Jenkins, Treasurer; J. N. Hurty, Librarian. Amos W. 
Butler was appointed Curator of the department of Orni¬ 
thology. Mr. Butler read a paper on “ The past and 
present of Indiana Ornithology.^ 
The Abundance of Quails last year. —Lord Walsingham 
has sent us the following further communication from the 
Earl of Ducie (see supra, p. 101), dated Mentone, January 
12th, 1886 
“ I have procured some definite information respecting 
the Quails, which tends to explain their appearance in un¬ 
usual numbers last year. Why they should have been 
numerous only in Central England I cannot understand. 
“A certain Signor Chiappori, of Genoa and Ventimiglia, 
who shoots along this coast at the time of migration, reports 
that Quails did not arrive in 1885 until the 11th May. The 
legal season for shooting them is very brief, lasting only to 
May 10, a period which generally covers the time of their 
stay on this coast. They usually arrive April 27. None 
were therefore killed in this district last spring. He reports 
further that none bred in Piedmont, where he usually finds 
plenty in autumn. A few bred along the sea-coast of the 
Biviera, an exceptional circumstance. He, and others, re- 
