Travels,' Atkinson's 'Amoor-land,' Emerson Tennent's 'Ceylon,' and the same author's 'Wild Elephant,' Baldwin's 'African Hunting,' Col. Walter Campbell's 'Indian Journal,' Bates's 'Naturalist on the Amazon,' and Wallace's 'Malay Archipelago'; while many beautiful full-page plates from his pencil adorn the works of Lewis Lloyd, A.E. Knox, Henry Stevenson, Philip Gosse, Canon Tristram, Professor Newton, and the Duke of Argyll. Nor should we omit to notice his 'Life and Habits of Wild Animals,' which appeared in 1874, illustrated from his designs, engraved by Whymper, with descriptive letterpress by D.G. Elliot."
Mr. J. Arthur Thomson, Extramural Lecturer on Zoology in Edinburgh, has been appointed to succeed the late Prof. Alleyne Nicholson as Regius Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen.
Our contributor Mr. F. Coburn has recently written, in the 'Birmingham Daily Post,' on the subject of the Public Natural History Collection in Birmingham, which included, or rather consisted of, the collection of specimens formed by the late Dr. Sands Cox. "The loss the city has sustained through not possessing a properly appointed natural history museum, presided over by a competent curator, at the time when this great collection was handed over to the custody of our authorities, is absolutely irreparable, and the fate which has befallen the bulk of that collection forms one of the strongest arguments which could be advanced for the establishment of a museum, for there are still a few gems left in that collection which ought to be saved. This collection must have cost its founder almost a fabulous sum of money, for it was peculiarly rich in forms which were most difficult to procure in those days. The collection of British birds was a very fair one, but its greatest value lay in the African, Indian, Australian, New Zealand, and New Guinea forms, some of which are now totally extinct, while others are on the verge of extermination."
Amongst its present treasures is the Nestor productus, or Phillip Island Parrot. This "is one of the greatest treasures which any museum in the world can hope to possess, as it is now generally admitted to be totally extinct; and, according to Professor Newton ('Dictionary of Birds,' p. 224), only about twelve skins, exclusive of the Birmingham specimen, are known to exist in the world. Thus it becomes a far greater rarity than even the Great Auk, a specimen of which was recently purchased by the Edinburgh Museum for, I think, 350 guineas, this being considered a very low figure. There are over sixty skins of the Great Auk known to exist, against about a dozen of Nestor productus. Its great value, therefore, is apparent at
