ON THE PROGRESS AND PRESENT STATE OF ORNITHOLOGY. 183 



M. de Selys Longchamps, well known by several valuable monographs of 

 European Mammals and Insects, has published the first part of his ' Faune 

 Beige,' Liege, 1842, containing a systematic arrangement of the Vertebrata 

 of Belgium. The specific descriptions are postponed to the sequel of the 

 work, which is nevertheless valuable for its critical remarks on structure, 

 habits and distribution. In the preface are some very judicious observations 

 on the subject of systematic nomenclature, the law of priority, the limitations 

 of species, and the still more difficult, because more arbitrary question, of the 

 due limitation of genera. It is very satisfactory to find that the majority of 

 European zoologists are now making considerable approaches to unanimity 

 upon these general principles, which form the groundwork of philosophical 

 zoology. 



Dr. Gloger's ' Schlesiens Wirbelthier-Fauna,' Breslau, 1833, contains a list 

 of the birds of Silesia, with remarks on their habits and migrations. 



M. Brandt of Petersburg, has published a work entitled ' Descriptiones et 

 Icones Animalium Rossicorum novorum,' in which several of the natatorial 

 birds of Russia are illustrated by full descriptions and accurate figures. 



France. — The ornithological portion of the ' Faune Fran^aise,' by M. 

 Vieillot, is a useful manual, though the author has made many unnecessary 

 changes of nomenclature. The descriptions are accompanied with figures on 

 copper, stiffly designed, but delicately engraved. 



The ' Ornithologie Provencale' of M. Roux is a respectable work on the 

 birds of Southern France, the text being carefully drawn up, though we may 

 regret that the author has adopted the objectionable nomenclature of Vieillot. 



Italy The ornithological researches of Savi, Bonelli, Ranzani, Costa, and 



many others, prepared the way for the magnificent ' Iconografia della Fauna 

 Italica' of the Prince of Canino, a work which, after ten years' labour, has 

 recently been completed. It consists of elaborate descriptions and beautiful 

 coloured plates of all the new or imperfectly elucidated Vertebrata of Italy. 

 The birds of that country, having been previously more fully investigated than 

 the other classes, occupy in this work the least prominent place, yet several 

 new species are there figured, and our knowledge of others is enriched with 

 much interesting information. The Introduction to the work contains an ex- 

 cellent summary of the whole subject of Italian Vertebrata. The noble and 

 philosophical author, who pursues with steady devotion the paths of science, 

 unallured by the manifold attractions of rank and fortune, has devoted the 

 best part of his life to the advancement of zoological knowledge. His 

 elaborate researches on North American ornithology, his classification of 

 vertebrate animals, his critique on the ' Regne Animal' of Cuvier, his 

 comparisons of the European and American faunae, are all works of the 

 highest value, and we may now congratulate him on the completion of this 

 admirable digest of the vertebrate zoology of Italy. Nor let it be forgotten 

 that he was the first to establish beyond the Alps, that great mental, no less 

 than physical barrier, a peripatetic congress of scientific men, similar to that 

 at which we are now assembled. This Italian Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science has met in the plains of Piedmont and of Lombardy ; it has 

 crossed the Appenines into the happy region of Tuscany, and it will next 

 year pass over the Papal dominions, to diff'use the light of knowledge in the 

 distant kingdom of Naples. 



An unpretending little volume by Sig'' L. Benoit, entitled ' Ornitologia 

 Siciliana,' published at Messina in ISiO, contains many interesting details on 

 the habits and migrations of the birds of Sicily. A work of greater value is 

 the ' Faune Ornithologique de la Sicile' of M. Malherbe, Metz, 1843, in 

 which about fifty species are added to the list of Benoit, making a total of 



