Recently puhVislied Ornithological IVorks. 191 



hitherto usually associated. ]Mr. Ridgway places the peculiar 

 San Domingan form Calyptophilus with the Mock-Thrushes. 

 This may be correct^ but we should rather be inclined to 

 consider it allied to Phamicophilns of the same island^ which 

 is usually referred to the Tanagers. 



The only true Larks (Alaudidse) in the Xew World are 

 Shore-Larks, the Sky-Lark, included in the List, being merely 

 a recent introduction. Of Otocorys, as we prefer to call the 

 genus, Mr. Ridgway, following Dr. Dwight, admits no less 

 than 23 subspecies, although he allows that in many cases 

 their differentiation " is necessarily a matter of very great 

 difficulty. ^^ As the Shore-Larks are mostly more or less 

 migratory, it is indeed not easy to understand how these 

 many subspecies can remain confined to distinct localities. 



With the Alaudidie terminates the long series of Oscinine 

 Passeres belonging to tlie American Avifauna, and the 

 Author now proceeds to the still larger INTesomyodian group, 

 which is so highly characteristic of the Oriiis of the New 

 World. This he divides into fourteen families, three only of 

 which are Palseogean, while all the eleven others are purely 

 Neogean. Of these the Oxyrhynchidse, Tyrannidre, Pipridse, 

 and Cotingidoe are taken in the present volume. The 

 Tyrannidse are indeed a hard task; and, as Mr. Ridgway 

 says, '' probably no other group of birds is so difficult to 

 study." Five hundred and fifty species^ referable to more 

 than eighty genera, are already described, and, if subspecies 

 are to be leckoned, these numbers will, no doubt, be largely 

 increased. Mr. Ridgway introduces numerous alterations 

 in the arrangement of the Tyrants proposed by Sclater in the 

 fourteenth volume of the ' Catalogue of Birds in the British 

 Museum,^ and has made many improvements ; but the 

 system adopted must still be considered as provisional, the 

 anatomy of many of the forms being entirely unknown. 



The arrangement of the Pipridae and Cotingida^, which 

 concludes the volume, has been still more seriously modified 

 than that of the Tyrannidce. Mr. Ridgway^s accurate 

 examination has shown that many of the genera in these 

 two groups have been wrongly placed, and that some forms 



