Recently published Ornithohf/iral Works. 505 



maintain an hereditary liahit of seeking the nests of particular 

 species wherein to deposit its egg^ is a knowledge where to look 

 for a nest. The bird that has an egg to deposit, and can easiest 

 find a nest where to put it, gives an advantage to its offspring 

 not shared by a bird less skilled in finding nests. Hence the 

 success lies in finding a suitable nest, and nothing beyond it, 

 and no subsequent anxiety on the part of the parent need be 

 exercised. 



We are not told in what system the species are arranged 

 in sequence; but to our eye the Swifts, Nightjar, Cuckoo, 

 Wryneck, Hoopoe, come a little out of place between the 

 Swallow and the Golden Oriole. 



But we have no wish to pick holes in this book of Mr. 

 Harting's, which deserves every success. 



The first number of the new edition of Layard^s ' Birds of 

 South Africa "*, which has been announced some time, reached 

 us too late to do more than mention its appearance in our 

 last nimiber. It contains the Birds of Prey nearly to the end 

 of the Owls. In form this edition is very different from the 

 first, being larger in size and printed in larger type and on 

 better paper. There are also considerable alterations in the 

 body of the work. The short descriptions in the first edition, 

 giving an outline of the ordinal, family, and generic charac- 

 ters, are here entirely suppressed, and the sole descriptive 

 part of the new edition applies to the discrimination of species. 

 The synonymy too, brief and imperfect as it was, is also en- 

 tirely cut out in the present work, as are also the native names. 

 It may well be questioned whether Mr. Sharpe, in making 

 these important changes, has exercised a wdse discretion. 

 One of the functions of such a work as this, and perhaps the 

 most important one, is to assist colonists and travellers in 

 determining the birds that come under their notice ; and the 

 omission of all the more salient landmarks to help them on 

 their way must necessarily render the task of correctly de- 



* The Birds of South Africa. By E. L. Layard, F.L.S. &c. New 

 edition, thoroughly revised and augmented by R. Bowdler ISharpe, F.L.S. 

 &c. Part I. 8vo. London : May 1875 (Quaritch). 



