104 Address. [Feb. 



In the Zoologische Jahrbilcher, Dr. S. Radde and Dr. A. Walter give 

 an elaborate account of the Mammals of the Transcaspian region. Sixty 

 species, referable to thirty-seven genera, are comprised in the list ; 

 notes are added on the domesticated mammals of the region, and the 

 Mammal fauna of the country is compared with the species of Mammals 

 recorded from Persia, Afghanistan, North-West Kashmir, and 

 Turkestan. 



Birds. — The publications treating of this popular branch of Zoology 

 which have appeared during the year are more than usually numerous 

 and important. Of general works on Ornithology, the first that claims 

 notice is the first volume (556 pages) of Mr. Eugene W. Oates' " Birds" 

 in the "Fauna of British India," edited by Mr. W. T. Blanford. In 

 this portion of the work a concise description, brief sj'uonymy and notes 

 on habits and distribution of 556 species of birds are given. The classi- 

 fication adopted by Mr. Oates is wholly in accordance with the latest 

 researches on the anatomy of birds, and is a great improvement on the 

 one adopted by Dr. Jerdon in his well-known work. Mi*. Oates begins 

 with the Passeres and gives very useful keys to the families, sub-families, 

 genera, and species treated of; some essential notes on anatomy precede 

 the detailed descriptions, and the work is throughout excellently illus- 

 trated by wood-cuts mainly illustrating the heads of the typical species, 

 but occasionally full-view pictures of species of the principal groups are 

 sriven. The limit to the number and size of the volumes allowed, to Mr. 



o 



Oates has obliged him to give only brief notes on the habits and folklore 

 of the diiferent species of Indian birds, but this is decidedly the section 

 in which compression was most allowable. On the whole Mr. Oates 

 must be congratulated on having produced such a satisfactory x-esume of 

 the mass of information accumulated about Indian birds since the pub- 

 lication of Dr. Jerdon's work. 



Mr. Oates has also published the first volume of a revised edition 

 of Mr. A. 0. Hume's " Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds." This is a 

 volume of 397 pages, illustrated with four excellent portraits of famous 

 Indian ornithologists, namely Mr. A. O. Hume, Dr. Jerdon, Mr. Brian 

 Hodgson, and Col. Tickell. The work is mainly a reprint of the original 

 edition, greatly enriched by many notes on nests and eggs which had 

 become available since the original publication. The classification and 

 numbering of the species is precisely the same as in Mr. Oates' general 

 work noticed above, so that the information here supplied to ornitholo- 

 gists admirably supplements the information given in the " Fauna of 

 India " series. When the three volumes of description and the like 

 number treating of nests and eggs are completed, we shall have in 

 moderate compass a source of information on the birds of the Indian 



