404 Heir Badeker's and Dr. Brewer's Oological Works. 



We will, however, make bold to say that there is always a 

 difference between the hues of the eggs of the Common and 

 Velvet Scoters, unless indeed they have both suffered from the 

 effects of air and light, and a more decided difference than is 

 shown in Herr Badeker's figures. 



With regard to the remainder of the work, it will suffice to 

 point out one or two slight inaccuracies, and to take a cursory 

 glance at some of those points which may be regarded as pre- 

 senting most interest to British Oologists. Our authors are 

 certainly in error when they speak of the Three-toed Woodpecker 

 of Europe being found in North America. Though by Swainson 

 and older writers one of the Nearctic species was mistaken for 

 the Linnean Picas tridactylus, there can be no question of its 

 distinctness. So also it is a mistake to suppose that the range 

 of the Common Kingfisher extends to Eastern Asia and Africa, 

 each of these regions possessing its own stock of allied but quite 

 independent forms. We suspect too that Herr Schrader, invert- 

 ing the proper process, and identifying (?) the bird by the egg, 

 instead of the egg by the bird, has successfully laid the founda- 

 tion of an error in asserting that the Chiff-chaff goes as far north 

 as 70° lat. We are indeed pretty sure that if it occurs at all in 

 the Scandinavian peninsula, it is only in the extreme south. 

 But the refutation of inaccuracies such as these, several move of 

 which could be mentioned, many persons may consider irrelevant 

 to the present subject, though for our own part, regarding the 

 geographical distribution of species as one of the most interesting 

 and important studies within the whole range of natural science, 

 we are at all times anxious to see mistakes of this sort corrected. 



We must remark that though our authors follow a practice 

 which we cannot but commend, in giving for each species an 

 English and French as well as a German common name, yet, by 

 some extraordinary mischance, not to take notice of those acci- 

 dental misspellings to which writers of a foreign language, and 

 that language English, are always liable, they seldom light upon 

 a name appropriate, or indeed at all commonly in use. Thus, 

 what reader in this country would recognize Aquila heliaca as 

 the " King's Eagle," or Falco communis as the " Blue-black 



