Recent Ornithological Publications. 117 



the author of a well-known and deservedly popular book, called 

 ' Wild Sports of the Highlands/ " It is made up of entries in 

 his journals and note-books, incidents in letters to his friends, 

 and a careful description of the Birds of Moray which he left 

 in MS. With these materials, hitherto unpublished, the sub- 

 stance of the ' Field Notes of a Natui-alist,^ which he published 

 in 1849, has been incorporated." 



We have to congratulate Dr. Jerdon upon the issue of a second 

 portion of his ' Birds of India ' — a work upon the general scope 

 and object of which we have already spoken *. The present 

 volume (which is called vol. ii. part i.) completes the account of 

 the great Insessorial Order, embracing the conclusion of the 

 Merulidce, the Brachj/jjodidce, Sylviidce, and Ampelidce, and the 

 Conirostres, in which group Dr. Jerdon includes three families 

 — Corvidce, Sturnida. and Fringillidce. 



We have not often occasion to refer to the Ornis of funiicr 

 geological epochs, although the birds of all time, as well as those 

 of every country, must be embraced in the studies of the true 

 ornithologist. But the extraordinary interest that attaches 

 itself to the fossil bird of the lithographic slate of Solenhofen, 

 which has recently become national property, leads us to say a 

 few words on Professor Oweu^s memoir on this subjectf, which 

 has been courteously communicated to us by the author. 



The history of the Archeopteryx may be given in Professor 

 Owen^s own words : — 



" The first evidence of a bird in strata of the Oxfordian or Co- 

 rallian stage of the Oolitic series was afforded by the impression 

 of a single feather, in a slab of the lithographic calcareous lami- 

 nated stone or slate of Solenhofen ; it is described and figured 

 witb characteristic minuteness and care by M. Hermann von 

 Meyer, in the fifth part of the ' Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie.' He ap- 

 plies to this fossil impression the term Ai^cheopteryx litkographica; 



* See Ibis, 1862, p. 219 



t " On the Archeopteryx of von Meyer, with the description of the fossil 

 remains of along-tailed species, from the lithographic slate of SolenhofeUj" 

 by Prof. Owen, F.R.S., Phil. Trans. 1863. 



