Recent Ornithulu(jical Publications. 377 



To Mr. Cassin we are indebted for a separately printed copy 

 of another of his valuable papers^ contributed to the ' Proceed- 

 ings^ of the Philadelphia Academy. This is " A Second Study 

 of the IcteridiEy' and contains a further account of the author's 

 investigations into the birds of this family. His former work 

 on the same subject we noticed last year (Ibis, 1866, p. 418). 

 One new genus, Idiopsar, allied to Quiscalus and Scolecophagiis , 

 is established, the type of which is /. brachyurus (sp. nov.) from 

 Bolivia. Three, or we may almost say four, new species of 

 Quiscalus are described, viz. Q. aglcms, Baird, now formally 

 separated from Q. barxjtus (L.), of which it is the Floridan repre- 

 sentative, Q. gundlachi, from Cuba, Q. brachypterus, from Porto 

 Rico, and Q. rectirostris, from an unknown locality. 



Don Felipe Poey, the well-known naturalist of Havana, has 

 commenced a new Journal devoted to papers on the Zoology and 

 Botany of Cuba, entitled ' Repertorio fisico-natural de la Isla 

 de Cuba.' The first number of this jouriial, published at 

 Havana in 1865-6, contains a list of the birds of the island by 

 the veteran ornithologist Gundlach*, who has laboured so long 

 and so successfully in investigating this part of the fauna of his 

 adopted country. M. Gundlach commences his article by some 

 preliminary remarks on the general character of the Cuban avi- 

 fauna, which merit much attention, and gives us a table of the 

 geographical distribution of the species, which shows us its 

 peculiarities at a glance. About 257 species are now recognized 

 as having been met with in Cuba. No less than 119 of these 

 are common to Cuba and the United States; but the greater 

 part of these 119 species, at least among the land-birds, are 

 migrants which visit the island only in winter. Eight species 

 only are given as common to Cuba and South America ; and 

 even in some of these cases the specific identity is questionable. 

 Yet in spite of this, there can be little doubt that the Antillean 

 province, to which Cuba belongs, must be referred rather to the 

 Neotropical than the Nearctic region. That this is the case is 

 shown by such types in the West Indies as Euphonia, Coereba, 



* " Revistay catalogo de las Aves Cubanas," por Juan Gundlach, Rep. 

 ris.-Nat. de Cuba, vol. i. pp. 165. 



