Recently published Ornithological Works. 273 



references to some extent when, at the completion of the 

 book, he prepares the preface. A full list and abstract of the 

 contents of all the papers and books on South- African birds, 

 inserted there, cannot fail to be useful. 



The second volume of the ' Catalogue of Birds in the British 

 Museum ^■^, upon which Mr. Sharpe is engaged, was issued 

 in December last. It includes the whole of the Owls as far 

 they are at present known. Mr, Sharpe adopts the ovitline 

 of the arrangement submitted by the authors of the ' Nomen- 

 clator Avium Neotropicalium ' to Professor Newton when 

 engaged upon the Owls in his new edition of YarrelFs ' British 

 Birds,^ and divides the Striges into Bubonidse and Strigidse, 

 the latter containing Strix and its ally Phodilus, the former 

 the rest of the Owls. The Bubonidse are again subdivided 

 into two subfamilies, Buboninse and Syrniinse, these divi- 

 sions being based chiefly upon the development of the ear- 

 opening and the presence or absence of an opercular fold at- 

 tached to it. 



This, we believe, gives a fairly natural arrangement of the 

 larger groups of the Striges, as far as they can be determined 

 from the examination of characters which are chiefly external. 

 As in his volume on the Accipitres, Mr. Sharpe gives " keys " 

 to both genera and species, Avhich add greatly to the utility 

 of the work, and has devoted much labour and time to 

 elaborate descriptions of each species, as well as to the 

 different states or phases of plumage in which they are found. 

 We regret to think that these descriptions, many of them 

 exceeding a page in length, are not destined to be much 

 studied; for the point sought for in determining a species 

 from Mr. Sharpens book will be more readily found in his 

 " key," or in the ^' observations " attached to the descriptions, 

 than in the descriptions themselves. Mr. Sharpens difficulties 

 in this respect are to be traced to the intricate character of 

 the colouring of the plumage of most Owls, which defies an 



* Catiil<>gue of the Stiiges, or Nocturnal Birds of Prey, iu the Collec- 

 tion of the British Museum. By II. Bowdler Sharpe. 8vo, pp. 325, 14 

 plates. Loudou : 1875. 



