Recent Ornithological Publications. 115 



the species of flightless birds, such as Apteryx, Strigops, and 

 Ocydromus, which were formerly found on these islands, as the 

 question is naturally a most interesting one. 



2. German. 

 Herr August von Pelzeln has been good enough to forward 

 us a copy of his work on the Ornithology of the Voyage of the 

 * Novara' round the world in the years 1857-59 *. The principal 

 portion of the ornithological objects were collected by Herr 

 Zelebor, who was among the men of science forming the Expe- 

 dition ; but various and not inconsiderable additions were also 

 made by other naturalists, among whose names we are gratified 

 to see Mr. Swinhoe's. We are left to infer the route taken by 

 the ' Novara/ but this appears to have been from Europe to Rio 

 de Janeiro, touching at Madeira, thence to the Cape of Good Hope, 

 and so on to St. PauFs Island ; after that to Ceylon, the Nicobar 

 Islands, Malay archipelago, and the Coast of China ; then the 

 Marian and Caroline Islands (Puyuipet) to Australia and New 

 Zealand; then across the Pacific, visiting the Society Islands, Pit- 

 cairn, Mitchell's Islands, and Juan Fernandez, to Valparaiso, and 

 so home by way of Cape Horn. In the introduction, Herr von 

 Pelzeln suggests the propriety of forming the ocean south of the 

 tropic of Capricorn into a new zoological region, in addition to 

 those proposed in the well-known geographical classification of 

 Mr. P. L. Sclater. The arguments adduced, however, in favour 

 of this course are not, we think, sufiiciently convincing, being 

 founded chiefly on the fact of the very peculiar genus Chiunis, 

 and the yellow-hooded species of Eudyptes being confined within 

 those limits. The author^s remarks on the variations in the 

 plumage of many members of the Falconidce, and on the geogra- 

 phical distribution of Accijntres, deserve attention. As species 

 now for the first time publicly described, we have Micrastiir 

 macrorhynchus from Brazil — a discovery of Natterer's ! (on 

 which Herr von Pelzeln takes occasion to describe minutely the 

 allied species M. concentricus and M. gilvicollis), Gerygone auck- 



* Reise der osterreicliischen Fiegatte Novara ura die Eide in den Jahren 

 1857, 1858, 1859. Zoologischer Thcil. Erster Band Vogel von August 

 VON Pelzeln. Wien : 18()5. 4to, pp. 17fj, tabb. 6. 



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