278 REPORT ON ZOOLOGY, MDCCCXLIV. 



This work is therefore of most important service for the determination of 

 specimens in collections. From each of the very numerous subfamilies 

 admitted by Gray, one or the other genus has been represented in a coloured 

 figure ; besides this, the head, upper side of the bill, feet, and wings are 

 depicted in appropriate copper-plates. Both text and figures have been exe- 

 cuted with the greatest accuracy : the colouring is excellent, and the whole 

 external decoration pretty elegant; price moderate. It is to be hoped 

 that this work will maintain a rapid progress, and thus within five years be 

 completed. It were in the highest degree desirable for an Ornithologist, 

 who is furnished with the requisite literary apparatus, to select the species 

 of Birds as objects of study, so that the far and wide-strewn materials may 

 be again brought together, and ornithology, which, as a science, has been 

 limited, from the constantly augmenting number of costly works, to a con- 

 tinually decreasing circle of readers, may thereby be newly rendered the 

 common property of all Zoologists. 



J. E. Cornay has laid before the Academic des Sciences 

 de Paris (Institut., p. 21) a new classification of Birds, 

 based upon the condition of the palatal bones. 



It is evident from his account that the condition of the palate bone cer- 

 tainly affords very useful indications for systematic arrangement ; and yet, 

 when the author comes to place the Flamingo next to the Ducks, or the 

 Cuckoo to the Roller, it is plain that a classification carried out in accord- 

 ance with a single character would lead, as an inevitable result, to co-ordi- 

 nations of groups, &c., that are contrary to nature. The same lesson has 

 been taught us in Botany by the Liunseau system, although this is based 

 upon an organ of far greater importance than is the palatal bone in Birds. 



Ornitologia powszeclma, czyli opisanie ptakow wszystkich 

 czes'ci s'iviata przcz Hr. Konstantego Tyzenhauza. Wiluo, 

 1844, torn, ii, S. 602. 



The Reporter has already given notice in a former Report of the first part 

 of this work, as being so admirably adapted for elevating the rank of Orni- 

 thology in Poland, and is delighted to find that it is making such goodly 

 progress. The second part, containing like the first, the arrangement of 

 Temminck, concludes with the Pigeons. Accompanying it is a coloured 

 figure of Steatornis caripensis. 



Ovographie Ornithologique, par M. O. des Murs. (Rev. 

 Zool. pp. 75, 329, 161, 209.) A further continuation of 

 the author's interesting work upon the eggs of Birds. 



He first discourses upon the influence of food on the colour of the 



