396 Canon Tristram on the Eighth Volume 



While adopting this classification and key, we must not 

 be supposed to endorse all the Baron's views with respect 

 to races, though happily he has too much respect for Lin- 

 naeus to inundate us with subspecies ; but we are hardly 

 yet prepared to depose our old friend P. teneriff<s or our new 

 acquaintance P. Jlavipectus from their specific position. 

 Yet we are convinced that a more careful and complete 

 review of the Parinse has never yet appeared. But, in oppo- 

 sition to the views advocated by Baron de Selys-Longchamps, 

 Dr. Gadow, and Mr. Seebohm alike, M. Menzbier has enun- 

 ciated a totally new theory (Revue Scientifique, Paris, 1884, 

 p. 515), holding : — not that the subspecies of Mr. Seebohm ai'e 

 races derived from a common type and modified by surround- 

 ing conditions, and that the intermediate examples of two 

 found near the geographical limits of each are hybrids, but 

 that, on the contrary, many of these are good aboriginal 

 species, e. g. P.flavipedus and P. pleskii, and that P. cyanus 

 and P. c(Bruleus are Tits of the Anglo-Saxon type, busied in 

 the absorption of the local species, and destined ultimately 

 to exterminate all traces of their rivals. The theory is 

 original ; but we think that naturalists will hardly yet be 

 prepared to accept it, nor do we perceive its basis of facts, so 

 far as yet set forth. 



Passing from the Paridse to the Laniidje, it is in the latter 

 that we find the errors of this volume most apparent. It is 

 not, howevei'. Dr. Gadow's fault, but that of his predecessors, 

 that he has been compelled to dislocate Gymnorhina from 

 Strepera. But we cannot pass over without a protest the 

 inclusion of Clytorhyiichus under Xenopirostris. To say 

 nothing of the one being a well-marked Madagascar genus, 

 and the other a native of New Caledonia, we find that though 

 the wing-formula is similar, yet in other points they differ 

 widely. The bill of the New Caledonian is not nearly so 

 elevated or convex as in Xenopirostris ; while tlie rictal 

 bristles, feeble and scarcely to be detected in the latter, are 

 very strong and powerful in the former. I say nothing of 

 the brilliant plumage of all the Madagascar birds and of the 

 sombre uniform drab of the New^ Caledonian. Dr. Gadow 



