402 Herr Badeker's and Dr. Brewer's Oological Works. 



may be conceived of the extent to which the illustration of varieties 

 is carried. Notwithstanding this, the low price of the work is 

 marvellous. 



Our limits will not permit us to comment at length u|)on 

 all the four parts of Mr. Biideker's book ; let us therefore take 

 the first only. We can hardly go into the question as to what 

 birds should be included as European, or recognized as good 

 species, and what should not, but the views of those who con- 

 sider the Aquila clamja of Pallas from Central Asia distinct 

 fi'om A. ncevia, may receive strength from the appearance of the 

 eggs figured in Plate I., wherein the representations of the East- 

 ern are decidedly larger, as is the case with the birds, and less 

 deeply marked than those of the Western examples. In Plate 

 II. the three figures of the eggs of the Osprey give but a faint 

 idea of the numerous varieties presented by a really fine series, 

 such as is possessed by at least one gentleman in this country. 

 By Plate III. the characteristic differences of the eggs of the 

 species of Buntings therein figured are very fairly preserved, and 

 a respectal)le selection of each is given. For Plate IV., which 

 comprises several of v^'hat according to the Editor are known in 

 English as the " Trush " and " Ouzel," we cannot say so much. 

 Those well-known favourites, " oft the earliest of the year," to 

 which we have been used all our lives, the eggs of the Misseltoe 

 and Song Thrush, and the Blackbird, have small justice done to 

 their beauty ; and we should like to have knowai a little more 

 about the specimens figured of the supposed eggs of the Tardus 

 minor of Gmelin, than that they were sent from Labrador " with 

 the birds," — a phrase greatly employed, it is true, by dealers, 

 but which may mean anything or nothing, and we fancy in prac- 

 tice most generally means the latter. Plates V. and VI. afford us 

 some examples from the Grallatorial order, and it is in these 

 figures that the chief defect of the artist first becomes very appa- 

 rent. Any person slightly acquainted with the ])rinciplcs of 

 drawing must know that a marking, be it spot or blotch of any 



Badeker's plates, should walk in the way of his father ; but there can be 

 little doubt that many of the so-called ' species ' erected by " the sturdy 

 Nestor of German Ornithologists " are not even permanent local races, 

 much less ' sub-species,' as some naturalists have chosen to consider them. 



