Recently published OrnUhological Works. 387 



\'ie\vs and Roiiiaues"s Views and those of their Followers. By Alexander 

 H. Japp, LL.D., F.R.S.E. 8vo. London, 1899.] 



The title sufficiently explains the aim of this preposterous 

 work, in which we are assured, with irritating iteration, that 

 Darwiu '' was not a thinker.'^ Gould, too, " was no thinker, 

 and was mostly either very weak or very far wu'ong when he 

 attempted anything outside his proper province." Inaccurate 

 and garbled " quotations " abound, and the * Zoologist ' for 

 1883 will be searched in vain for anything like the assertions 

 ascribed to Mr. Bidwell on p. 51 ; while absolute misstate- 

 ments are sadly frequent. References to p. 10 and p. 31 

 would lead the reader to suppose that the male Cuckoo 

 " deposits" — if he does not actually lay — " his eggs in other 

 birds' nests." The index is w orthy of the rest of the book, 

 and to say more about the whole production would be a 

 waste of our space. 



50. he Souef on Birds from North Australia. 



'Ornithological Notes from the Northern Tenitory. A List of the 

 Birds, with the Nests and Eggs, obtained by Mr. E. Olive on the 

 Katherine River. By D. lie Souef, C.M.Z.S. Victorian Nat. xvi. 



no. 4.] 



Mr. Le Souef writes useful remarks on the more important 

 birds obtained by Mr. E. Olive while collecting on the 

 Katherine River, Northern Territory, from October 1898 to 

 January 1899. The collector's field-notes are appended, and 

 tlie nests and eggs are described. 



51. Martorelli on the Pattern of the Plumage of Birds. 



[Le Forme e le Simmetrie delle Macchie nel Piumaggio. Memoria 

 Ornitologica del Prof. Giacinto Martorelli. Mem. Soc. Itai. Sci. Nat. vi. 

 fasc. •>, 1898.] 



Only an ornithologist who is conversant with all the 

 niceties of the Italian language can do justice to this recon- 

 dite treatise; and in the hope of obtaining the assistance 

 of one thus qualified we have delayed our notice for a 

 twelvemonth, but in vain. The author's conclusions are .22 

 in number; the first being that the spots or markings on 



