Recently published Ornithological Works. 129 



the human native perhaps excepted. We cannot pretend that 

 some of their original glory had not departed by 1868 — to 

 have seen that one would have had to go back some thirty 

 or forty years, if not more, to the days of Girdlestone, Hoy, 

 Richard Lubbock, the Pagets, Scales, Whitear, and others 

 whose names are well known to the naturalists of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk ; but still the district retained much of its original 

 character which has since, to a great extent, disappeared. 

 With the invasion of the " tripper " has come the publica- 

 tion of many books on the Broads, mostly of the quasi- 

 naturalist kind now so popular — occasionally right when the 

 author " cribs " from good sources, but generally wrong 

 when he trusts to his own judgment, and by florid writing 

 tries to hide his own ignorance. In marked contrast to 

 such books is Mr. Patterson's little volume before us, which 

 tells the plain tale of a true observer, and is of itself worth 

 more than the whole of the rubbish just mentioned. Yet 

 all will agree that it would have been far more convenient 

 had a little more order been observed in arrangement of the 

 notes, though this defect is somewhat remedied by an index, 

 which, so far as we have tested it, seems to be extremelv 

 good. We do not intend to go into any of the notes : some 

 may be thought hardly worth recording, but there is a fresh 

 wholesome air of reality about all of them which makes it hard 

 to say which should have been excluded. The author's capacity 

 as an observer is exemplified by the fact that he recognised 

 a strange bird, while on the ground, as a Pectoral Sandpiper, 

 which being shot shortly after proved to be so — only not the 

 ordinary American form, but the Asiatic Tringa acuminata. 

 A dozen coloured plates by Air. Frank Southgate shew very 

 remarkable power in depicting birds, and most decidedly 

 embellish this little book. 



21 . Rothschild and Hartert on some Papuan Birds. 



[Berichtung. Von Dr. Walter Rothschild und Ernst Hartert. Ann. 

 Mus. Xat. Hung. i. p. 447 (1903).] 



The object of this article is to shew that Dr. J. v. Madarasz 

 was in error in his treatment of a small collection of birds 



SER. VIII. VOL. V. K 



