192 New and forthcoming OrnitJiohgical IVorks, ^c. 



nary care under the headings they might be expected to be found 

 under; but accuracy has been entirely neglected, and we find errors 

 and blunders that are little short of astounding. To justify 

 these strong remarks, the following instances selected out of a 

 host of others will, we think, be sufficient. To begin at home, 

 the first and second series of this Journal are set down as contain- 

 ing five volumes each (p. 10). Under "Propagatio" (p. 120) 

 we find that the views of our worthy predecessor in 1852 took a 

 very practical turn, and that he published in that year a work on the 

 " breeding, rearing and fattening of Domestic Poultry'^ ! Works 

 and papers upon the birds of different portions of the world are 

 arranged under the particular country to which they belong. It 

 is there that the most glaring errors are to be found. Under 

 "Britannia" we find (p. 165) a paper in the Boston Society of 

 Natural History, by H. Bryant, entitled " List of Birds observed 

 at Grand Manan and Yarmouth"!; also (p. 165) a descriptive 

 catalogue of the raptorial birds in the Norfolk and Norwich 

 Museum. Wickevoort-Crommelin's papers in the Ned. Tijdschr. 

 Dierk. and elsewhere are included under " Germania, Austria " 

 (p. 178), somewhat prematurely, we cannot but think. Under 

 " Asia" we find (p. 190) '' Notes on Birds collected in Benguela, 

 by J. Monteiro." Can Benguela have been confounded with 

 Bengal ? So far as we can see, the Antilles, Bermuda, Vancouver's 

 Island, the Falkland Islands, and Hainan are all classified under 

 ''Australia and Oceania ;" in addition to which we find under the 

 same heading a paper on North-China birds and Mr. Stevenson's 

 * Birds of Norfolk ' (was Norfolk Island supposed to be the scene 

 of Mr. Stevenson's labours ?) ! Papers on the birds of North, 

 Central and South America are hopelessly confused. Sombrero, 

 Chiriqui, Nicaragua, Yucatan, Pana Island in the gulf of Gua- 

 yaquil, and Honduras all come into North America. Central 

 America, according to Dr. Giebel, contains the district of Columbia 

 (an astonishing fact for the Government of the United States), to 

 say nothing of the Smithsonian Institution ; and South America 

 is the scene of Mr. Layard's notes from the Antipodes ! Finally, 

 but, alas ! not exhaustively, Mr. Eyton's Catalogue of the species 

 of skeletons of birds in his possession finds itself classified under 

 ''Aves monstrosse, abnormes, hybridEe " ! Misprints abound to 



