170 Recently published OrnitJiological Works. 



every case/^ have been determined by Captain Shelley. The 

 collection, Mr. Sharpe tells us, ''was formed with the 

 greatest care, and it is seldom that it falls to the lot of 

 the naturalist to examine a series of birds in which the par- 

 ticulars of capture are so carefully noted on each specimen 

 as in the present instance. For this reason alone therefore 

 the collection is of great importance; but, besides this, it 

 represents, without doubt, a very fair idea of the avifauna of 

 the parts of the Transvaal and Matabele countries through 

 which Mr. Oates travelled.'^ 



The species enumerated are 213 in number. Brady or nis 

 oatesi is described as new, and figured, as is also Saxicola 

 shelleyi, Sharpe, a " fine species, hitherto only known from 

 a pair of birds in the British Museum, stated to have come 

 from the Victoria Falls. ^^ 



On the Inkwesi (20° 55' S. lat.), in February 3874, a Horn- 

 bilFs nest was found. ''The boys'^ says Frank Oates, 

 " brought me a young Hornbill, and I was taken to the nest. 

 A hollow tree, with a hole in it high up, was where the bird 

 had come from. They poked out and pulled the wing-feathers 

 off the old hen when I was not looking. I kept both birds.''^ 



" Karl says the old hen never leaves the young, the cock 

 feeding them all, and that she gets quite bare of feathers. 

 The number of young is two. The natives, he says, are very 

 fond of them to eat, roasted." This is an interesting confir- 

 mation of the now well-known, but not less extraordinary, 

 nesting-habits of the Bucerotidse. 



• 14. Oustalet on the Megapodes, 



[Monographie des Oiseaux de la Famille des Megapodiides. Par M. E. 

 Oustalet. Part I. Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 6, t. x. art. no. 5. Part II. ibid, 

 xi. art. 2.] 



M. Oustalet gives us a most complete essay on the Mega- 

 podes. After discussing the skeleton, muscular system, diges- 

 tive and other internal organs and tegumentary structure at 

 full length, he proceeds to consider the systematic relations 

 of the family, and concludes to follow nearly the views of A. 

 Milne-Edwards and Huxley on this point, except in separating 



