Recently published Ornithological Works. 509 



personal observations on the valne of a " degagee air " and 

 *' silence in confinement " as specific characters : he would, 

 too, have been able to test the correctness of the drawing op- 

 posite page 92, in which Aquila culleni is represented with 

 the nostril pointing /or i^arc?* and downwards, instead of the 

 reverse, as is the case with all Eagles we have seen in which 

 the nostril was not round. Indeed we believe that the form 

 of nostril shown in the sketch has hitherto only been seen in 

 some of the American Polybori of all known Accipitres. Dr. 

 Bree's apparent unconsciousness of the peculiarity of this cha- 

 racter, and the introduction of such characters as '^ silent in 

 confinement," was hardly to be expected after the solemn 

 sentence in the preface in which he laments the absence of a 

 sound knowledge of comparative anatomy displayed by so 

 many of our ornithologists ! 



We think Dr. Bree has been unfortunate in his printer ; 

 for it has seldom been our lot to encounter so many misprints, 

 which disfigure nearly every page of the volume before us. 



These and other defects, which we cannot here allude to, 

 render the second edition of the ' Birds of Europe ' a work 

 that must be trusted with care. The extremely low price 

 of the work place it within the easy reach of many ; but ac- 

 curacy is even more essential than cheapness, and we again 

 regret that the requisite care on the part of the compiler has 

 not been expended so as to combine the two. 



In Part I. Number 2, of Mr. Rowley's ' Ornithological 

 Miscellany'^, the author continues his essays on the birds of 

 New Zealand, and lays before his readers a plate of the rare 

 White-faced Owl [Sceloglaux albifacies), drawn by Mr. Keu- 

 lemans from living specimens in the author's possession. 

 The second plate represents the White Gallinule, or Por- 

 phyrio, formerly in Bullock's celebrated collection, whence 

 it passed into that of Lord Derby, and afterwards to the 

 Liverpool Museum, where it now remains, Mr. Rowley, 

 being unable to associate it with any other known species of 



* Ornithological Miscellany. By Georgo Dawson Rowley, M. A. Parti, 

 No. 2, and Part II. No. 2. Platen, 4vo. London : 1875. 



2 o 2 



