510 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



Then, again, the list of Guianan birds is capable of being 

 considerably extended, so that the subject will have to be 

 revised at some future day. 



But it appears, so far, from an examination of these col- 

 lections, that though Guiana has a certain affinity, as regards 

 its birds, with the Andean countries of Venezuela, Colombia, 

 Ecuador, and Peru, and to a less extent with Central America, 

 Bolivia, and S.E. Brazil, its relationship to the immediately 

 adjoining coujitry, the vast basin of the Amazons river and 

 its tributaries, is much closer. This result is quite in accor- 

 dance with previous views on this subject. 



Further, the connection of Guiana with the West Indies, 

 North America, and the Argentine Republic is very slight, and, 

 as regards the two first-named countries, consists chiefly in 

 the fact that both the West Indies and Guiana are the winter 

 abode of a number of North-American migratory species. 



XLIX. — Notices of Recent Ornithological Publications. 



[Continued from p. 376.] 



77. The American Ornithologists' Union Code and Check- 

 List. 



[The Code of Nomenclature and Check -List of North American Birds, 

 adopted by the American Ornithologists' Union : being the Report of the 

 Committee of the Union on Classification and Nomenclatui-e. New York. 

 1886. 8vo.] 



The motto adopted on the titlepage of this volume — 

 '' Zoological Nomenclature is a means, not an end, of Zoological 

 science" — is termed by the Committee a ''trite truism/' which 

 they raise with regret to the dignity of a " Principle,'' in order 

 to protest "against every wanton, capricious, arbitrary, or 

 otherwise needless and undesirable change of names which 

 have acquired usage and definite signification in Zoology.'' 

 The four more Principles enunciated by the Committee being 

 equally unexceptionable, we may pass on to the fifty-two 

 Canons and ten Recommendations. By Canon XIII. it is 



