252 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



HeiT E. F. von Homeyer. It has been repeated by one orni- 

 thologist after another, not excepting the most omniscient, that 

 the Snowy Owl, Nyctea scandiaca, has no ear-tufts ; but Herr 

 Meves asserts that it has, and that, although short, they are 

 distinctly visible (p. 284). With regard to Laniiis excubitor 

 and the disputed specific validity of L. major, he maintains 

 that he has found every gradation between them, as Professor 

 CoUett has substantially done. A list of Swedish birds by 

 Dr. Sundstrom is followed by a translation into German, 

 with notes, by Herr Meves, of the Introduction to Sunde- 

 vall's 'Tentamen,' published in Swedish and French. Then 

 comes a valuable paper on the birds observed in Iceland, by 

 H. Benedict Grondal, who, amongst other things, has settled 

 the somewhat doubted occurrence of Tardus pilaris in Ice- 

 land; for he saw and examined one, alive but exhausted, 

 taken on the 6th December, 1885. He makes a slip of the 

 pen with regard to the Snow Bunting, PlectropJianes nivalis, 

 by calling it Montifringilla nivalis ; but it is almost needless 

 to say that the true Snow Finch has never been found in 

 Iceland. There is also a short paper by Herr P. Nielsen on 

 the breeding of the Black-tailed Godwit and Water Rail in 

 that country. A report on the birds of Livonia, comprising 

 only 171 species, is succeeded by some valuable remarks upon 

 261 birds observed in the Dobrudcha and Bulgaria, by Count 

 A. Alleon, already well known for his articles upon the 

 avifauna of the vicinity of Constantinople. 



49. Oustalet on two new Species of Birds from the Cape 

 Verd Ishmds. 



[Description d'especes nouvelles d'Oiseaux provenant des lies du Oap- 

 Vert. Par M. E. Oustalet. Ann. d. Sci. Nat. svi. (1883).] 



The 'Talisman' brought home from one of the islands of 

 this group, the Ilha branca (the home of the rare Lizard 

 Macroscincus coctai) , an adult Shearwater which is described 

 as new by the name of Puffinus edwardsii ; also a Sparrow, dis- 

 tinguished from Pasfier jagoensis as Passer brancoensis, sp. n. 

 These two new species appear to have escaped the eye of the 



