ON NORTH AMERICAN ZOOLOGY. 165 



logues for various districts of the United States, to contribute 

 towards our knowledge of the geographical distribution of the 

 species ; but with regard to the discovery, description, and illu- 

 stration of the feathered tribes of that country comparatively 

 little remains to be accomplished. When Wilson's admirable 

 work appeared, European ornithology could boast of nothing 

 equal to it*. The Prince of Musignano's highly valuable cri- 

 tical examination of synonymsf, and his publication of new spe- 

 ciest, ably supply what Wilson, cut off in the midst of his 

 career, left incomplete ; and the magnificent book of Audubon, 

 now in the course of publication, surpasses every attempt of the 

 kind in any country. Audubon's plates present to us some of 

 the finest specimens of art, and his ornithological biographies 

 convey the observations of a whole life enthusiastically devoted to 

 studying the forms and habits of the feathered inhabitants of the 

 air. It is announced that his forthcoming volume will contain 

 a synopsis arranged in conformity with the recent improvements 

 of science, and also a treatise on the geographical distribution 

 and migration of the species ; in short, this grand work will 

 henceforth be the standard of reference for the birds which fre- 

 quent the Atlantic states from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and eastward to the great prairies. 



Of the birds of Russian America and California we have only 

 detached notices by travellers, the Appendix to Capt. Beechey's 

 voyage by Mr. Vigors containing the only scientific list. Up- 

 wards of sixty species are therein noticed ; but it is to be la- 

 mented that the collectors have in many instances omitted to 

 record the places where the specimens were procured, so that 

 even their country is in some instances doubtful §. Lichten- 

 stein's promised Mexican fauna, if it be published, has not 

 yet reached this country, and there is no other work to which 

 we can look for a full enumeration of Mexican birds. One 

 hundred species, however, from that country were character- 



and second voyage, and Sir John Ross's second voyage have the natural hi- 

 story appendices publislied in separate quarto vohimes; while the Fauna Boreali- 

 Americana, of which three volumes have been published, is intended to supply 

 the place of an appendix to Sir John Franklin's second journey. The appendix 

 to Captain Beechey's voyage, though mostly printed off several years ago, is 

 not yet published. 



* Vieillot's " Oiseaux de VAmer. septentr." Paris, 1807, preceded Wilson's 

 book, but only two volumes have appeared. 



t Observations on the nomenclature of Wilson's Ornithology, Journ. Ac. Sc. 

 Phil, iii. et infra, 1823. — Genera of North American birds, &c.. Lye. of Nat. 

 Hist., New York, ii. 1826. — Catalogue of birds of the United States, Maclu- 

 rian Lye, No. i. Phil , 1827. 



J Continuation of Wilson's Ornithology, V. Y., 2 vols. 



§ Since this report was read, we learn that Professor Nuttall has returned 

 from Upper California with a rich harvest of objects of natural history, and 

 among the rest with thirty species of undescribed birds, which will be included 

 in Audubon's work. 



