124 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



are presented by rail way- stations^ like Camden Town and Clap- 

 ham Junction, would fortify him in that belief. Nevertheless 

 the unpretending and agreeable little book which Mr. Harting 

 has just published"^ shows that the metropolitan county is far 

 from being wanting in localities of ornithological interest. One, 

 at least, of the chief requirements of modern civilization provides 

 haunts for species which other " improvements" might tend to 

 banish. Water cannot be supplied to large towns without re- 

 servoirs ; and such natural or artificial receptacles are often 

 goodly lakes, as witness the one at Kingsbury, which, with its 

 extent of many acres, offers attractions that few passing migrants 

 of aquatic propensities seem able to resist. Of the 225 species 

 which, according to Mr. Harting, have been observed in Mid- 

 dlesex, a very large proportion have occurred in this locality, and 

 a view of it forms an appropriate frontispiece to the volume. 

 Mr. Harting, we must say, seems to have admitted a few spe- 

 cies on rather slight evidence — among them the first he men- 

 tions, Aquila cknjsaetus. The anonymous gentleman who recog- 

 nized this species on the wing must indeed be " well acquainted 

 with the bird " to have distinguished it from the White-tailed 

 Eagle. Mr. Harting, on the testimony of Edwards and Mon- 

 tagu, includes Anthus ludovicianus ; but we would venture to 

 suggest the far greater probability of the ^' Red Lark " of those 

 two authors being the European A. spinoletta, which has been 

 so long confounded with it, and which is recorded as having 

 several times occurred in this country [Cf. Ibis, 1865, pp. 114- 

 116). So also the Swallows with light chestnut underparts, 

 which the author states that he has several times seen, are much 

 more likely to have been examples of Hirundo riocouri s. cahirica 

 {Cf. Ibis, 1866, p. 423) than the American H. rufa, or rather 

 H. horreoruin. We are glad to see that he disclaims Progne 

 purpurea as Middlesaxon ; for we have long thought that Mr. 

 Yarrell had been rather too credulous as to the story he was 

 told of that species occurring in England. We heartily con- 



* The Birds of Middlesex. A Contribution to the Natural History of 

 the County. By James Edmund Harting, F.Z.S. London: 

 MDCCCLXVi. Post 8vo., pp.284. 



