Recent Ornithological Publications. 375 



observation. Id the German periodical 'Der Zoologische Gar- 

 ten' for 1866 (pp. 374, 375) appears a note by Ilcrr G. Bruck- 

 lacher, stating that the author watched a Cuculns canorus 

 tlirough a telescope, saw her lay an egg on the grass, take it in 

 her bill, and deposit it in the nest of a Motacilla alba ! 



2. Dutch. 



We regret to say that the excellent Catalogue of the Lcydcn 

 Museum makes but slow progress. In our number for October 

 1865 (Ibis, 1805, p. 533), we noticed its seventh Part; and 

 since then we have only received one other, which completes the 

 Ralli and gets more than halfway through the Anseres^. The 

 former are represented in the collection by 708 skins and 42 

 osteological specimens of 40 species. We observe that Prof. 

 Schlegel refuses to recognize the specific validity of Mr. Sclater's 

 Plectropterus rueppelli (P. Z. S. 1859, p. 131, pi. cliii., and 1860, 

 pp. 38—42) as distinguished from P. gambensis, remarking that 

 "nos individus de I'Afriquc orientale [which should be P. ruep- 

 jjelli] presentent precisement les caracteres que Mr. Sclater 

 assignes a son Anser gambensis, c'est-a-dire a I'oiseau de 

 I'Afrique occidentale." There may possibly be a mistake some- 

 where as to the locality whence the two birds come ; but of their 

 specific distinctness we feel assured. Will any of our readers 

 inform us to which of the two species the specimens killed in 

 Great Britain belong ? One, which was killed in Cornwall in 

 1821, and was the subject of Bewick's figure, is in the Museum 

 at Newcastle-on-Tyne ; the other, which was killed near Banff 

 in 1855 (Naturalist, 1855, p. 181) is, according to Yarrell 

 (B. B. 3rd Ed. iii. p. ), in the possession of Mr. Smurth- 

 waite, of Richmond, Yorkshire. 



Heer J. P. van Wickevoort Crommelin has obligingly sent us 

 copies of three papers communicated by him to the ' Archives 

 Neerlandaises' for the present year. The first of these is " Sur 

 le Circus eequipar," the name by which Cuvier is said to have 

 previously designated the bird called in 1830, by Sir Andrew 



* Museum d'llistoire Naturelle cles Pays-Bas, 8'Uf li\Taison. Leydeji, 

 1866. (London, Williams and Norgate.) 



