Recently published Ornithological Works. 475 



Glasg. ii. p. 69). In these supplementary notes his remarks 

 on the increase or decrease of certain species will be read 

 with interest. 



59. Bureau on the Moulting of portions of the Puffin's beak. 



[De la mue dii bee et des omements palpebreaux du Macareux Ai'ctique 

 Fratercula arctica (Linn.), Steph., apres la saison des amours. Bull, de 

 la Soc. Zool. de France, 1878.] 



Mons. Bureau has made the exceedingly interesting dis- 

 covery that certain portions of the beak of the Puffin^ at the 

 base of the maxilla and of the mandible^ and also the two 

 horny excrescences above and below the eye, are regularly 

 shed every year after the breeding-season, and as regularly 

 assumed as that season approaches. From observations made 

 by the author in a colony of these bii'ds off the coast of Brit- 

 tany, he is able to give a full account of the process of change 

 which the Puffings bill undergoes. The number of deciduous 

 pieces is no less than thirteen altogether. These are fully 

 described, and their position shown in two plates which ac- 

 company the paper. Similar changes doubtless take place in 

 the other species of Fratercula, as Mons. Bureau suggests. 

 These mostly concern our American brethren, who will 

 no doubt be not slow to take up so novel and interesting a 

 subject for observation. The fact that portions of the bill in 

 certain birds are seasonally deciduous is not absolutely a 

 novel discovery; for Mr. Ridgway has taught us that the 

 horny protuberance on the bill of Pelecanus trachyrhynchus 

 is shed every year. But this is not nearly so elaborate a per- 

 formance as that which the Puffin undertakes. We are glad to 

 see that this interesting paper has been appreciated on both 

 sides of the Atlantic, as shown by Dr. Coues^s copious notice 

 of it in the April number of the ' Nuttall Bulletin,^ and Mr. 

 Harting^s translation (accompanied with a copy of one of the 

 plates) in the July number of the ' Zoologist.^ 



60. Ridgway' s Studies of the American Herodiones. 



[Studies of tlie American Herodiones. Part I. Synopsis of the Ame- 

 rican Genera of Ardeidce and Ciconidcs ; including Descriptions of three 



