Recent Ornithological Publications. 413 



recurs to mind; and the latter is most decidedly not, as be 

 formerly suggested, the wild Peafowl of the island of Ceylon. 



2. French. 



Some months ago we suggested (Ibis, 1865, p. 223) that a 

 great ornithological coup was incubating in France. Events 

 prove us right, though at that time we had no idea of the real 

 state of the case. A report submitted in March last to the 

 Academic des Sciences by a Commission composed of some of 

 the most illustrious French palaeontologists and naturalists* 

 announces that the " Grand Prix des Sciences Physiques " for 

 1865 has been adjudged to M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards for his 

 " Recherches d^anatomie comparee et de paleontologie pour 

 servir a, Fhistoire de la faune ornithologique fran9aise aux 

 epoques tertiaires et quaternaires.'^ We are delighted to find 

 that this interesting subject has at length found a worthy ex- 

 positor. The author of the treatise — if two folio volumes of 

 text and six of plates may be called a treatise — according to the 

 report upon it, has done his work extremely well, and we cannot 

 doubt that, when published, as we hope it soon will be, it will 

 prove of the highest value to all who hold, as w^e do, that it is 

 impossible from a philosophical point of view to disconnect the 

 sciences of palseontology and zoology. As we recently heard it 

 well put by Prof. Huxley — " Palaeontology is simply the biology 

 of the past ; and a fossil animal differs only in this regard from a 

 stuffed one, that the one has been dead longer than the other, for 

 ages instead of for days." M. A. Milne-Edwards seems to have 

 thrown great light on the Ornis of the French eocene and mio- 

 cene rocks (the French pliocene formation is without any trace 

 of birds), as well as on that of the quaternary deposits. It is 

 stated that all the fossil birds of the tertiary epoch can be included 

 in the natural groups which still exist ; though, as might be 

 expected, none of these species are identical with living forms^ 

 and some are types of entirely new genera. On the other 



* Rapport sur le Coucours pour le grand prix des sciences physiques. 

 Commissaires : MM. d'Archiac, Elie de Beaumont, Daubree, de Verneuil, 

 de Quatrefages rapporteur. Comptes Rendus des seances de rAcademie 

 des Sciences, 5 Mars, 1866. 



