206 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



however, to have this underground traveller positively iden- 

 tified, if there are specimens of it in the British Museum. 



With regard to the Gulls observed in the Straits of Ma- 

 gellan, Dr. Coppinger makes some statements which are 

 entirely at variance with the experience of every other ob- 

 server, and also with the evidence to be derived from care- 

 fully sexed specimens, as well as general analogy. He states 

 (p. 60) that the female of Larus dominicanus is brown, and 

 that she pursues and robs the " black-backed (male) bird," 

 as a Skua might do; also that, in the immature Dominican 

 Gulls, the colour of the mandibles is '^ green, instead of 

 orange as in the males, and black as in the females." The 

 brown pursuing bird may have been a ravenous young one 

 seeking food from the adult, as young Gulls will often do, 

 or it may have actually been a Skua {Sterc'orarius chilensis) ; 

 but there is no such sexual difference in plumage between 

 the adults oi L. dominicanus or of any other known Gull; 

 nor have we ever seen, out of a hundred specimens, a young 

 one with green mandibles. 



29. Doering on the Birds of the Rio Negro of Patagonia. 



[Informe Oficial de la Coiiiision Cientifica agregada al Estado Mayor 

 General de la Expedicion al Eio Negro (Patagonia), realizada en lo3 

 meses de Abril, Mayo, y Junio de 1879, bnjo las ordenes del General D. 

 Julio A. Roca. Entrega I. Zoologia. Por el Dr. D. Adolfo Doering, 

 con la colaboracion del Dr. D. Carlos Berg, y de D. Eduardo L. Ilolm- 

 berg. Buenos Aires : 1881.] 



In 1879 the Argentine Government despatched an expe- 

 dition to the Rio Negro of Patagonia under the command of 

 General Roca, to stoj) the inroads of the marauding Indians. 

 A scientific Commission was sent in their company, consist- 

 ing of Dr. P. G. Lorentz, assisted by G. Niedcrlein, for 

 Botany, and Dr. Doering, assisted by F. Schulz, of the Mu- 

 seum of Cordoba, for zoology and geology. The report on 

 the birds obtained during the expedition, and the general 

 observations on the fauna of the territory annexed, are from 

 the pen of Dr. Doering, and both essays contain much in- 

 teresting matter. The new territory is divided zoologically 



