244 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



Mr. Rowley also gives us in his present number excellent 

 figures of Platycercus rowleyi, a lately described species from 

 New Zealand^ of Chalcophaps indica, and of the almost extinct 

 Labrador Duck {Somateria labradoria) . A disquisition on 

 some of the extinct birds of the Mascarenes is also included 

 amongst the varied contents. 



24. Mulsant's ' Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux-Mouches.' 



* [Histoire Naturelle des Oiseanx-Mouches ou Colibris, constituant la 

 famille des Trocliilides. Par E. Mulsant et feu Edouard Verreaux. 4to, 

 T. ii. Livr. 3 & 4 ; T. iii. Livr. 1 & 2. Lyon : 1876. J 



Since our last notice (Ibis, 1875, p. 510) Mons. Mulsant 

 has made steady progress with his work, so that now two 

 thirds of it have been issued, six more Livraisons alone re- 

 maining for its completion. The four Livraisons now before 

 us seem quite equal in execution to those which have preceded 

 them ; and as the matter contained in them embraces refer- 

 ences to the most recently published information respecting 

 the Trochilidse, they give evidence to M. Midsant's industry. 

 The author's system of minute generic subdivisions is still 

 further carried out, and we notice several new generic names 

 for sections of the microscopic genera into which the Hum- 

 ming-birds have already been divided. The characters upon 

 which these would-be genera rest prove, upon examination, 

 to be drawn solely from style of coloration, and are, in our 

 opinion, little more than of specific value in a wide sense. We 

 notice that M. Mulsant maintains the old position assigned to 

 the so-ea\\ed Anthocephala castaneive7itris (iii. p. 123), having 

 apparently overlooked the remarks in the 'Proceedings' of the 

 Zoological Society of London (1870, p. 206), where this sup- 

 posed species was almost conclusively proved to be the female 

 of either Oreopyra lencaspis or O. calolama — an opinion the 

 correctness of which all subsequent experience has tended to 

 confirm. The plates accompanying these parts include figures 

 of Metallura Jelskii and Heliangelus barali, species which had 

 not before been delineate'd. 



