Short Jii'otices of Oniit/iolof/ical Puhllcatlons. 155 



Indeed, witli tlie exception of Corcus scapulutus, \vhicli 

 ranges over the whole of Africa to the South of the Sahara, 

 and Merops pei^siciis, which, besides being migratory has an 

 enormous range, there is little to show any influence upon 

 the avifauna of these islands due to their comparative 

 })roximity to our South Africa, all the other species which 

 appear in the lists of both these islands and our sub-continent 

 being migrants whose passage lines fall on both places. 

 The nearest allies to the birds of these islands are in 

 Madagascar, but the number of species peculiar to these 

 small islands themselves " make," to use Professor Newton's 

 words, " the Comoro Islands one of the best examples in the 

 world where s})ecies may be seen in the process of speci- 

 fication "; whilst the land birds of the Seychelles, which 

 have not obviously been introduced, are almost all peculiar 

 to those islands. 



Space unfortunately forbids a close analysis of the results 

 of Mr. NicolFs work here, but they bear out the conclusions 

 already drawn by Messrs Milne-Edwards and Oustalet. 



J. A. B. 



2. ' The Avicidtural Mar/azijie,'' April, May, June, and 

 July, 1906. 



The April number contains very little of special interest to 

 South African ornithologists. 



The May number contains an article entitled " Aviculture 

 in South Africa,^' by Capt. B. R. Horsbrugh, A.S.C., 

 M.B.O.U., and a member of our Union. He says the 

 Violet-eared Waxbill (E. granatind) is called the Love-bird 

 along the Modder River, \\here it is a "scarce resident." 

 He found the Scaly-feathered Weavers (^Sporopipes squami- 

 Jrons) " breeding in the bush along the Modder River 

 literally in thousands. In one small acacia or wait-a-bit 

 thorn about 20 feet high there were over two hundred 



nests All had eggs or newly-hatched young, and the 



noise reminded me of C/icadas." A pair bred in his aviary 

 and reared one young one, exactly like the adult, but with a 



