Recent Ornithological Publications. 109 



Gulls of North America," which Mr. Coues has prepared for 

 publication in a Government Report. We are glad to hear that 

 this monograph will be illustrated by figures of the bills of all 

 the species, and coloured drawings of the primary quills, show- 

 ing the outline and extent of their markings ; for such illustra- 

 tions cannot fail to be of the greatest assistance towards the 

 correct discrimination of the species of this difficult group. Mr. 

 Coues seems to us in some cases to push rather to an extreme 

 the separation of the representatives of the same specific types 

 in the northern portions of the two hemispheres. The question 

 is, in all such cases. Is it possible in a large series of specimens 

 to separate those of the one region from those of the other, with- 

 out a previous knowledge of the localities ? The doctrine of the 

 difference of the species of distinct zoological regions has now 

 been carried to such an extent, that it is too frequently assumed 

 that species are different because they ought to be different, and 

 because previous writers, who perhaps have only taken the 

 trouble to compare single specimens from each locality, have 

 considered them different, and assigned different names to them. 

 But it seems manifest that no representative species ought to be 

 recognized unless it can be clearly shown that it presents differ- 

 ences {however minute these may be) which render it invariably 

 recognizable without a pi"evious knowledge of its origin. 



We will defer further remarks on Mr. Coues's arrangement of 

 the Larina until the more perfect work is produced, and con- 

 tent ourselves for the present by stating that the species re- 

 cognized as North American amount to no less than twenty-five 

 in number, of which sixteen belong to the more typical section 

 containing the genus Larus and its allies, and nine to the 

 Xemine or hooded group, in which the head usually grows black 

 in the breeding-season. 



From Mr. D. G. Elliott's '^ Remarks on the species composing 

 the genus Pedioecetes^, Baird," given in a subsequent page 

 (p. 482) of the ' Proceedings,' it would seem that the supposed 



* This name is commonly written Pedioccetes. But if, as we presume, 

 the derivation is ■ntbiov, campus, and oIktjttjs, habitans, it ought to be spelt 

 Pedioicetes. 



