466 Bibliographical Notices. 



fulvous, with the shafts black, instead of being lighter in the 

 interior and edged with darker chestnut, as is the case in the 

 latter species. From Amydrus morio of Abyssinia and Western 

 Africa, the only other member of the group as now restricted, 

 it is at once distinguishable by its smaller size and the paler 

 colouring of the primaries. 



Mr. Tristram shot these birds on the 30th of March last, at 

 Mar-Saaba, in the valley of the Hebron. They had their nest 

 in the rocks ; but he was unable to reach it. The discovery is 

 of much interest, as the bird belongs to a purely African group 

 not hitherto met with in Palestine. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



General Report upon the Zoology of the several Pacific Railroad 

 Routes. Part II. Birds. By Spencer F. Baird, Assistant 

 Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; with the co-operation of 

 John Cassin and George N. Lawrence. 1 vol. 4to, Wash- 

 ington, 1858. 



In our notice of the first Part* of this important work, some account 

 is given of the way in which the large mass of zoological materiel 

 collected by the various expeditions sent out by the United States 

 Government to investigate the most practicable railroad route from 

 the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, was proposed to be treated. 

 The second Part, which has just issued from the press, serves to 

 confirm our opinion as to the excellence of the method chosen, and 

 the great value of the results thus likely to be obtained. The pre- 

 sent volume (in which Prof. Baird, the general editor, has been ably 

 assisted by Messrs. Cassin and Lawrence) contains a systematic 

 account of the birds collected or observed by the parties organized 

 under the direction of the War Department for exploring the dif- 

 ferent railroad routes ; and, as in the volume on Mammals, by the 

 insertion of the comparatively few species not noticed by these ex- 

 peditions, it has been made a complete exposition of the present state 

 of our knowledge of the birds of America north of Mexico. For, 

 besides the specimens collected by the railroad surveys, the Smith- 

 sonian Institution has become the depository of collections from 

 several other sources, forming altogether a series of 12,000 specimens 

 illustrative of the ornithology of North America ; so that the mate- 

 rials for a general Report of this kind were ample. And it must be 

 allowed, we think, that good use has been made of them. Even 

 those who object to what they may term the new-fangled system of 

 arrangement — the excessive subdivision of the genera and multipli- 

 cation of species, and the unnecessary changes of old-established and 

 familiar appellations — must admit that the divisions are generally 

 well defined, the distinctive characters of the species, such as they 



* Vide Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 3. vol. i. p. 369. 



