Letters, Announcements, 6)T. 255 



rank should at last have deigned to study birds with the view 

 of assisting special ornithologists in their labours as regards 

 classification ; for we recently had to lament the small amount 

 of light thrown on this subject by another high authority. Orni- 

 thologists have been very much abused, or at least ridiculed, 

 by some other classes of naturalists for the many very trivial cha- 

 racters on which weight is laid in the systems most in vogue — 

 but, we think, unfairly so. Surely it has been the business of 

 comparative anatomists (the men who are spoken of as having 

 " large views ") to put special ornithologists in the way of 

 knowing better, particularly by pointing out the most essential 

 characters in the osteology of birds. Now we have hitherto 

 been almost entirely devoid of such assistance, though we must 

 not pass over the well-meant efforts of MM. Lherminier and 

 Blanchard, or even of De Blainville and a few others. The 

 great Cuvier himself, as Prof. Huxley well remarked, never 

 seems to have exerted his mind on the class Aves as he did on 

 other animals ; and his example has been imitated by nearly all 

 his followers. We hope that a better time is in store for us, 

 and that things will be placed on a surer foundation by the 

 publication of Prof. Huxley's researches, which he is about to 

 communicate in a more complete form to the Zoological Society. 

 This being the case, we abstain from giving here any abstract of 

 the results which he has made known ; but in due course of time 

 we shall, no doubt, have to announce them to our readers. 



Naturalists are pretty well agreed as to the propriety of 

 designating a species by the name under which a description of 

 it was first published ; but the question what constitutes '^publi- 

 cation " seems, although several times discussed, never to have 

 been settled ; for the rule of the British Association on this point 

 is deemed too arbitrary by many persons. A case has lately 

 occurred in which some definite decision must be arrived at. 

 At the meeting of the Zoological Society on the 28th of February 

 last was read a paper by our contributor IMr. E. P. Ramsay, 

 describing a new bird under the name of Pardalotus leadbeateri. 

 The March number of 'The Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History' contains a description of the same species by Prof. 



