Recently published Ornithological Works. 213 



36. Elliot on the Genus Porphyrio and its Species. 



[The Genus Porphyrio and its Species. Stray Feath. vii. pp. 6-25.] 

 Mr. Elliot's materials for elaborating this paper are con- 

 tained in the Paris Museum. He allows nine valid species 

 of the genusj all of which are inhabitants of the Old World. 

 The American birds often placed in Porphyrio are consi- 

 dered to belong to a different genus. Several changes of 

 synonymy are advocated, and several supposed species are 

 degraded from that rank and their names cast into the 

 limbo of synonyms. This process has been freely applied 

 to the birds of the South Pacific Islands, all of which 

 Mr. Elliot considers to belong to one and the same species as 

 that of Java, P. calvus. The species described as new last year 

 (Ann. & Mag. N. H. ser. 5, i. p. 98) from Cochin China under 

 the name P. edwardsi is now figured. Another plate shows 

 the extent to which the frontal shield varies in P. calvus. 

 There is a small matter connected with this paper to which 

 we wish to call the attention of the editor of ' Stray Feathers ' 

 — that is, the suppression of the original pagination in the 

 separate copy of this paper now before us. It has been 

 found most desirable, and, we may say, is now almost univer- 

 sally put in practice, to keep, in separate copies, the original 

 pagination of the work from which they are taken. When 

 quotations are made from the separate copy, and not from the 

 whole work, the convenience of having the original pagination 

 before one is too obvious to need advocating. 



37. Salvadori on the Subgenus Globicera. 



[Monografia del sottogenere Glohicera, Bp. Cronaca del E.. Liceo- 

 Ginnasio Cavour, 1877-78.] 



Of this section of the genus Carpophaga Prof. Salvadori 

 recognizes seven species, all of which, with one exception, 

 are found in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. C. myristi- 

 civora has a more western range than the other six species, 

 frequenting nearly the entire New-Guinea area, including 

 many of the adjoining islands. The whole synonymic history 

 of these seven species is carefully brought together in this 

 paper; and the range of each species is traced. 



