116 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



not considered quite good enough in 1884 to justify the 

 insertion of the species in the 4th Edition of " Yarrell," yet 

 subsequent inquiries have maintained its character. — H. S. 



2. ' The Auk.' 



[The Auk. A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology. Vol. xxi. Nos. 3 & 4, 

 July and October 1904.] 



The July number of f The Auk ' opens with a paper by 

 our Foreign Member, Dr. H. von Ihering, of Sao Paulo, 

 Brazil, on the Biology of the Tyrannidse with respect to their 

 Systematic Arrangement ; and this is followed by Mr. P. A. 

 Taverner's Discussion of the Origin of Migration, in which 

 much that is trite as well as true is enunciated. Very inter- 

 esting, but all too short, are the Extracts from an unpublished 

 Journal of Audubon, contributed by Mr. Ruthven Deane. 

 Passing over two papers of local interest, we come to Dr. J. A. 

 Allen's discussion of the case of Meg alestris versus Cat har acta. 

 It would appear that in the game of Nomenclature, which is at 

 present so popular, it has been claimed by Herr Franz Poche 

 ( Ornithol. Monatsb. 1904, p. 23) that the name Catharacta 

 of Briinnich, 1764 (amended as Catarracta), should take 

 priority of Megalestris , Bonaparte, 1856, for the group of 

 Great Skuas- This claim is now dissected and its futility 

 exposed in masterly style. Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey 

 contributes some valuable notes on the Birds of the Upper 

 Pecos, in New Mexico, where Messrs. Henshaw and Nelson 

 left some work " for future investigators " in 1883, and the 

 area is, we are now told, by no means exhausted. Then 

 follows an elaborate paper, illustrated by maps, on the Origin 

 and Distribution of the Chestnut-backed Chickadee (Parus 

 rufescens) by Mr. Joseph Grinnell. A full-page illustration 

 of a specimen of (Estrelata hasitata, obtained in New Hamp- 

 shire on August 30th, 1903, accompanies a notice by Dr. Allen 

 of the eleven examples procured in the United States — 

 four of them since 1895. This rare Petrel is therefore not 

 yet extinct. Extirpated, as Mr. Nicoll tells us, in Dominica 

 and Guadeloupe by an introduced opossum, there seems to 

 be just a chance that it may still have a breeding-place in the 



