41 8 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



can heartily second Mr. Newton's advice to have handles to the 

 drills. 



The section on the preparation of specimens contains many 

 useful hints, the very simplicity of which has led them to be 

 forgotten till after many a lesson of bitter experience; such, 

 e. g. as keeping the egg from the light while drying, holding it 

 over a basin of water while operating, the proper method of 

 packing safely, &c. How many a collector has groaned on the 

 reception of a box packed with sawdust ! At page 12 we have 

 an admirable method given for sti'engthening hard-set eggs 

 during the process of emptying their contents. We may, per- 

 haps, venture to add our regret that Mr. Newton should have 

 tolerated by any suggestion, while he most justly condemns, 

 the semibarbarous two-hole system. 



The concluding observations contain many valuable hints on 

 identification and the methods of attaining it. The field natu- 

 ralist must never forget that the more closely species approach 

 each othei', the more important as well as the more difficult is 

 identification. For this reason we always admired the nerve 

 with which a worthy fellow-traveller used ruthlessly to smash 

 every unidentified capture, and can re-echo his exclamation, 

 " An identified duck is the most valuable of eggs !" 



We can only now most heartily thank JMr. Newton for his 

 lesson both to grandmother and grandchildren in blowing eggs, 

 and hope that he will follow up his suggestions by other bro- 

 chures on the arrangement of cabinets, and the collection of 

 skeletons or portions of skeletons, a subject on which none can 

 speak with more authority. 



LIV. — Recent Ornithological Publications. 



1. English Publications. 



Among the " Zoological Notes from Aueiteum in the New He- 

 brides," by Mr. J. MacGillivray, in the August number of ' The 

 Zoologist,' is a description of a supposed new species of Petrel 

 [Procellai-ia torquata), allied to P. cookii and P. mollis. This 

 bird breeds in Aneiteum " in burrows in the wooded moun- 



