Recent Ornithological Publications. 463 



the products of Mr. Wolfs pencil will find an additional attrac- 

 tion in some of the woodcuts, especially the frontispiece to Vol. I., 

 where the author is represented as beset by a noisy group of 

 Curl-crested Toucans {Pteroglossus heauharnaisi) , excited by the 

 cries of one of their wounded companions. 



The ' Edinburgh Philosophical Journal ' for July last contains 

 a description, by Sir William Jardine, of a West African species 

 of Spine-tailed Swift (which has been hitherto confounded with 

 A. sabini), under the name Acanthylis hartlaubi. The bird is the 

 same as that described by us, at the Meeting of the Zoological 

 Society on the 26th of May last, as Chcetura cassini^. Sir William 

 Jardine quotes the notice of our paper having been read from 

 the report given in the * Athenseum ' of May 30th, but remarks 

 that he " cannot recognize such notices as descriptions, or as any 

 authority for a name." To this we may reply that it has been 

 the general practice of naturalists to consider papers read before 

 learned Societies, and subsequently published in their " Pro- 

 ceedings " and " Transactions," as bearing date from the time of 

 their being read ; and that if this practice be followed, the nam.e 

 hartlaubi must give way to that of cassini. On the other hand, 

 there can be no doubt that the former name is that under which 

 the first published description of the bird appears. We trust that 

 our two respected bi*ethren of the British Ornithological Union 

 at Bremen and Philadelphia, who are so nearly concerned in the 

 matter, will not fall out upon this grave question of precedence. 



In the 58th Number of Mr. Breeds 'Birds of Europe,' published 

 on the 1st of July last, the history of the "Birds of Europe not 

 observed in the British Isles " is terminated, and an Appendix 

 containing some additional species, omitted from the body of the 

 work, commenced. At the beginning of this Appendix we are 

 startled by the appearance of a new European species oiAccipiter, 

 proposed to be called Accipiter gurneyi. The specimens upon 

 which this supposed new species is founded are those procured 

 at Beyrout by Mr. Louis Lauretta, and noticed in Mr. Gurney's 

 article in the first volume of this Journal (p. 390) as Accipiter 

 * See P. Z. S., 1863, p. 205. 



