of the Jaschikul lake in the Alittschur Pamir, which lies 12,090 ft. above the sea-level, and to which they travel through Kashgar and Yarkand. Thence the expedition will cross over the difficult passes into the province of Bakhau, in the South Pamir, where photographs and plans will be taken of the ruins belonging to the period of the ' Siaposcher.' The explorers intend to spend the winter of 1898–9 in the province of Ischkaschin, in the territory of Bokhara, where a meteorological station will be erected, and researches made in botany, zoology, and ethnography. In the summer of 1899 the expedition will journey along the Amu-Darya to Khiva, on the Sea of Aral, where the ruins of the flourishing period of the history of Khiva are to be photographed. The costs will be provided in part by the Danish State, partly from the Carlsborg Fund, and partly by A. Nielsen, the Danish Consul in Rostow."—Athenæum.
The ornithology of the Philippine Islands has been much studied of late years in this country, and many papers thereon have been published by the late Marquis of Tweeddale, Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, W.R. Ogilvy-Grant, A.H. Everett, and others. In the Proc. U.S. Nat. Museum there has recently appeared "A List of the Birds known to inhabit the Philippine and Palawan Islands, showing their distribution within the limits of the two Groups," written by Dean C. Worcester and Frank S. Bourns. Both these authors have collected on the spot, and they have studied the available literature on the subject, giving a bibliography of papers consulted. Differentiating the political and zoological areas, they have separated the Palawan group—of Bornean affinities—from the "Philippines proper." In a list of known species, excluding those which occur in the Palawan group, but have not yet been found in the Philippines, 526 species are enumerated. A map and six distribution charts add to the value of a valuable contribution to zoo-geography.
Mr. Walter Faxon has published in the Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. Washington some "Observations on the Astacidæ, &c," which may be taken as supplementary to his "Notes on American Crayfishes," issued in 1890. The paper generally is naturally of a technical description, but many observations are recorded as to the habits of these interesting creatures. Cheraps bicarinatus, Gray, according to Eyre, as quoted by Gray, "is found in the alluvial flats of the river Murray, in South Australia, which are subject to a periodical flooding by the river. It burrows deep below the surface of the ground as the floods recede and are dried up, and remains dormant until the next flooding recalls it to the surface. At first it is in a thin and weakly state, but soon recovers and gets plump and fat, at which
