Recenthj puhlished Ornithological Works. 447 



in having a larger tarsc and longer toes. The throat of P. 

 nympha is more decidedly white ; the green of its mantle is 

 somewhat more yellow; and the sanguineous middle line of 

 its belly mounts higher. Both want the white creseent on 

 the black axillaries^ but are otherwise closely allied to the P.- 

 coronatus group of India. 



[To be continued.] 



XLIV. — Notices of recently published Ornithological Works. 



Those who know the bulk and cost of our county-histories 

 will be thankful to Mr. Mansel-Pleydell for having printed 

 in a separate form and octavo size his natural-history contri- 

 butions to the new edition of Pulteney's 'Dorsetshire/ now 

 in course of publication. These consist of a Dorset ' Flora/ 

 a Dorset ' Ornithology/ including a " List of the rarer birds 

 of the County/' and a similar treatise on its 'Conehology'*. 

 Strictly speaking, we have only to do Avith the second of 

 them; but the "Introduction" to the 'Flora' contains a 

 good account of the physical geography of the district, which 

 deserves the attention of our readers, since too many local 

 naturalists are apt to overlook that essential coefficient of all 

 Faunas, Dorset has hitlierto not been favoured by ornitho- 

 logists, and no list of its birds has appeared since Pulteney's 

 'Catalogue' in 1799 (?) ; while it has been also remarkably 

 deficient in well-placed observers, and thus, doubtless, many 

 a winged Avindfall to its coast has escaped enrolment in the 

 '' British List." Portland itself, one would think, should be 

 another Heligoland, attracting storm-tossed stragglers from 

 afar ; yet Portland makes little figure in our author's work. 

 Poole Harbour, with its many bays and backwaters — looking 

 from the Lytchett heights more like a West-Indian lagoon 

 than any thing else in this island — has, indeed, long been 

 famous for the number of rare water-birds which have fallen 



• Flora of Dorsetshire &c. By John Clavell Mansel-Pleydell, I5.A., 

 F.L.S., F.G.S. London and Blandford, 1874, 8vo, pp. 320. 



Oniitholotn' and Conchology of the County of Dorset. By the same, 

 pp. 120. 



