Recently published Ornithological Works. 198 



The natural features of the above district, including the 

 opposite shores of the Firth of Forth, present considerable 

 variety, which will account for the number of species (152) 

 mentioned in the list. The author's observations extend 

 over more than thirty years, and are supplemented by notes 

 on the Waders and Water-fowl of the Firth by Mr. Harvie- 

 Brown. The remark implying that the breeding-range of the 

 Stock Dove in Scotland was not known to extend beyond 

 Dunkeld, was probably written nearly two years ago, and 

 Mr. Dalgleish is doubtless by this time well aware that the 

 bird nests in the rabbit-warrens near Nairn and Forres on 

 the sandy shores of the Moray Firth. 



39. Des Murs on European Birds. 



[Musee Ornithologique lUustre. — 1. Les Oiseaux de Rivage et de 

 Terre; 2. Les Oiseaux d'Eau: — Classification, Sjiiouymie, Description, 

 Moeurs des Oiseaux d'Europe : leurs G^ufs, leurs Niels. Par O. Des Murs. 

 2 vols. EoyalSvo. Paris: 188G.] 



These two imposing volumes are illustrated by 145 " chro- 

 motypographies,^^ taken, with scarcely an exception, from the 

 illustrations to Morris's ' British Birds ' and the ' Nests and 

 Eggs o£ British Birds,' and Bree's ' Birds of Europe not 

 observed in the British Islands/ We have seldom seen 

 appropriation accompanied by so many blunders in the 

 taking. The brown egg of the Common Bittern is attri- 

 buted to the Little Bittern, and vice versa ; the pale blue egg 

 of the Night- Heron is given to the Spoonbill, while the 

 egg of the latter is placed under the Glossy Ibis; the eggs 

 of the Curlew and the Whimbrel are transposed, as are those 

 of the Greenshank and the Dusky Redshank, and so on ad 

 infinitum. The letterpress is in no respect an advance upon 

 Degland and Gerbe's ' Oiseaux d'Europe,' published nearly 

 twenty years ago. We are unfeignedly grieved to see such 

 a book associated with the name of the author of the 

 ' Oologie,' a work in which an attempt was made to classify 

 birds by their eggs. 



40. Finsch and Meyer on neio Paradise-birds. 



[Vogel von Neu CUiiuea, ziimeist aus der Alpenregion am Siidostab- 



