Recent Ornitholoyical Publicatioyis. Ill 



IX. — Notices of Recent Ornithological Publications. 

 1. English. 

 Mr. Tristram's ready pen is so well known to, and so highly 

 appreciated by, all our readers, that to them we are sure a work 

 from it requires no recommendation from us. But we must 

 call attention to the narrative of his last campaign in Palestine, 

 which has been recently published''^. We can honestly say 

 that it is the most agreeable book of travels we have read for a 

 very long time. The constant recurrence in it of observations 

 on natural history makes the work doubly interesting, while 

 the value of the abundant information it contains is increased 

 by the author's singularly pleasing and unaflFected style of 

 conveying it. Large as the volume is, there is absolutely not 

 a single dull page in it. We are not surprised to hear that 

 a second edition of the ' Land of Israel ' has been already called 

 for, and this will probably have appeared by the time the present 

 notice meets the eyes of our readers. We only wish Mr. Tris- 

 tram's great literary success in this undertaking might lead to 

 the publication of his Algerian Journals of 1856 and 1857. 

 Their chief ornithological features have, it is true, been already 

 laid before the public, by himself and Mr. Osbert Salvin, in the 

 former series of 'The Ibis;' but that series of papers sadly 

 requires a connecting narrative, such as would be afforded by the 

 sequel to ' The Great Sahara,' which we were once led to expect, 

 and now our hopes on the subject are again revived. 



The distinguished German professor who was employed, some 

 twenty years ago, by the Ray Society to report on the pro- 

 gress of ornithology, considered that the publication of such 

 works as those upon which Mr. Gould has hitherto been engaged 

 would ultimately injure the science they professed to advance, 

 and he deliberately proposed that their existence should be com- 

 pletely ignored. Should this gentleman be still in the land of 

 the living, as we certainly trust he may be, it must be some 



* The Land of Israel ; a Journal of Travels in Palestine, undertaken 

 with special reference to its physical character. By II. B. Tristram, 

 M.A., F.L.S., &c. London: 1865 (Society for Promoting Christian Know • 

 ledge). 8vo, pp. 652. 



