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Show 6 ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS MADE DURING [Jan. 4, 7. CTENOMYS MAGELLANICUS, Benn. A spirit specimen from Pechett Harbour. 8. OCTODON DEGUS, Mol. Two skins from Coquimbo (June 1879). 9. MYOPOTAMUS COYPU, Mol. A skin from Swallow Bay (March 21,1880), and a skin and skeleton from Talcahuano, Concepcion (September 1879). 10. PHYSALUS, sp. A cervical vertebra and two tympanic bones of a species of this genus, obtained at Point Rosario, are in the collection, but are not sufficient to enable me to identify the species. Besides these specimens, Dr. Coppinger discovered, in caves on the cliffs, various human and mammalian remains, of which, we may hope, he himself will give an account, with full details of the circumstances under which they were found. II. BIRDS. By R. BOWDLER SHARPE. Although the region in which Dr. Coppinger has been working has already received considerable attention from ornithologists, so that no novelties are to be expected, yet the careful way in which Dr. Coppinger has prepared and labelled his specimens, and the localities and dates he gives, render his collections very interesting. The following extracts are taken from one of his letters, in which he alludes to the localities where his first collection was obtained. Writing from Coquimbo in June 1879, Dr. Coppinger observes :-" The collection of birds will appear, at first sight, very incomplete, at least when compared with those which have been been made by ships previously employed in surveying in the Magellan region. I wish, therefore, to call attention to the circumstance that the surveying operations of the ' Alert' have hitherto been confined to the archipelago fringing the west coast of Patagonia, and chiefly to the neighbourhood of the Trinidad Channel in 50° S. latitude, where the rainfall is excessive, and the Bird-fauna scanty as compared with that part of the Magellan region situated to the eastward of Port Famine and Sandy Point." A few eggs were also sent by Dr. Coppinger; but they call for very few remarks, having already in most cases been described bv Professor Newton (Ibis, 1870, p. 501). • !vn l o J-1"6?!!11 Cper 1 Sare referred to the three essaJS published in the Ibis by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin, as follows •- 1. ''List of Birds collected in the Straits of Magellan bv Dr. Cunningham with remarks on the Patagonian Avifauna," Ibis, looo, pp. loo-i&y. ' |