826 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



the production of the first edition of this book. It was written 

 by Mr. R. Titian Peale, one of the naturalists of the Expedition, 

 and bears the date 1842 on its title-page. But few copies — only 

 one hundred, it is said — were issued, and the rest, if ever com- 

 pleted, were destroyed by fire at Washington. However this may 

 have been, the volume is one of excessive rarity, and only in very 

 few instances has found its way to Europe. A circumstance 

 which no doubt rather prevented any attempt to reproduce 

 copies of it in its then shape was, that it was hardly a creditable 

 book to bring before the scientific world. Being the composi- 

 tion of one who seems to have had little, if any, previous know- 

 ledge of his subject, the errors were very numerous. Old, well- 

 known birds were described as new ; species were referred to 

 impossible genera, and the descriptive characters so drawn up 

 that it was next to hopeless to attempt to use them for the pur- 

 poses of determination. The public are indebted to Dr. Hartlaub, 

 of Bremen, for an extended critical notice of this scarce volume, 

 published in Wiegmann's ' Archiv fiir Naturgeschichte*^' in 

 which such of these mistakes as could be corrected without 

 inspection of the type specimens were set right. And we 

 cannot understand why Mr. Cassin has hesitated to acknowledge 

 the services rendered to science by the author of this admirable 

 critique, where the greater part of Peale^s errors were corrected 

 eight years ago, and which must manifestly have been of great 

 assistance to him in preparing the present edition. 



We subjoin a few notes upon some of the species of birds in- 

 cluded in Mr. Cassin's list : — 



P. 78. Sarcorhamphus papa has been mentioned as an in- 

 habitant of Southern Mexico, in P. Z. S. 1857, p. 226, having 

 been obtained in Vera Cruz by M. A. Boucard. 



P. 118. Corvus ruficollis. — We cannot believe that this Crow 

 is "not uncommon " in the island of Madeira, as Mr. Peale has 

 stated. It is not mentioned at all in the hst of a careful observer 

 of the birds of that island, E. Vernon Harcourt, Esq., given in 

 the 'Annals of Nat. Hist.' June 1855. We agree with Mr. 

 Cassin that it is not a West African species ; and, were it so, the 

 zoology of Madeira is purely Palaearctic, and has nothing to do 



* See Wiegmann's Archiv f. Naturgesch. xviii. Jahr. 1 Bd. p. 93. 



