306 Analyses of Books. [Ocr. 
and make a denizen, nolens volens, of every feathered straggler. 
We do not deem our Fauna so poor as to require this. 
We are disappointed to find the boldest and most elegant. of 
the tribe, the arctic gull, L. Parasiticus, still wanting in Mr. B.’s 
work. 1t is neither so rare nor shy but a specimen might have 
been procured. Its more minute history is rather obscure. Some 
observations by Dr. Edmonston and Mr. L. Edmonston, in the 
later numbers of the Edin, Phil. Journal.promise to throw light on 
it.* Enough, however, has appeared to prove Montagu’s specu- 
lations to have been as well founded as they were acute, namely, 
that the L. Crepidaius and the young of the arctic gull are iden- 
tical. Cuvier, in his Regne Animal, even so late as 1817, adopts 
from Brisson the genus Svercoraires, (the genus Lestris of Hliger,) 
in which he ineludes the L. Parasiticus and L. Crepidatus as 
distinct species. It is not a little singular to find so distin- 
guished a writer not only retail the long received, but now uni- 
versally exploded belief, in the unnatural instinct of these birds, 
won _actually introduce a genus implying the existence of this 
abit. 
From the size of the pair of black toed gulls in the Edin. Mu- 
seum, we have sometimes fancied that they might be the young 
of the Catarractes. Has the young of the catarractes ever been 
precisely observed and discriminated ? 
The lesser black back, as it is called, Larus Glaucus, is also 
wanting to complete this numerous, changeful, and hitherto 
imperfectly discriminated tribe of birds. 
Scolopax Canescens—Lin. (Gmel.) Cinereous godwit, This 
bird terminates the supplement. Mr. B. closes his description 
of it with some remarks on the confusion which prevails regard- 
ing the scolopax and tringa genera. The fluctuation of plumage, 
reserved habits, and near affinities of these numerous and ill- 
defined tribes will long oppose obstacles to the settlement of 
their respective claims. Nor will the absence of all precision 
in the language of colour, be one of the least obstacles to such 
settlement. Writers on natural history have, indeed, denied 
themselves a powerful auxiliary in so long hesitating to adopt 
Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, or some other constructed 
on a similar basis. We must give full credit to Mr. B. for the 
disinterestedness of his wishes on this point (excepting so far as 
he has to depend on the information of others), for no one stands 
less in need of colour to render his figures recognizable. 
Mr. B. continues, we think judiciously, and at all events, con- 
sistently with the scheme of his work, to reject all synonymes 
but the most common and popular of the French from Buffon. 
Ornithology has, perhaps, from the very nature of the subject, 
* Capt. Vetch states several curious facts which manifest a nice and accurate obser- 
vation of the habits and economy of the arctic gull. 
