^°1908^^] Recent Literature. 239 



ordinary creature, since it is .supposed to have possessed a 'booted' tarsus, 

 a feature we believe to be unique (not to say unnatural) among flightless 

 birds, whose tarsi are covered with a strong armor of scales. The feathered 

 tarsus is not an innovation of the artist's, for as Mr. Rothschild .says, " Pro- 

 fessor Owen has shown that Megalapteryx huttoni was feathered down to 

 the toes, and in the plate I have represented it clothed with feathers" (p. 

 186). The nomenclature of fo.s.sil forms is uptodate, and the author evi- 

 dently has been to much pains in revi.sing the various genera and species 

 of Dinomithidte. We note that Cela Reichenbach, is recognized as a 

 genus containing five species, but would call attention to the earlier u.se 

 of this name by Oken (1816). 



Mr. Rothschild's book will .serve to call attention to the many birds 

 already extinct, and to the still larger number now threatened with extinc- 

 tion, although the list there given by no means includes all of the species 

 in these categories. We find no mention of the Eskimo Curlew, the ' Cahow' 

 of Bermuda, the .several Guadalupe Lsland birds now extinct or nearly so; 

 nor do we find many of the Polynesian species that might well be included 

 among those threatened with extinction. 



Among the colored plates are 20 or more, based entirely upon descrip- 

 tions (no specimens having been preserved) or illustrations of the old 

 writers, and some of these do not appear to be entirely tru.stworthy. Thus, 

 in the plate of Ara erythrura, we find the tail prominently tipped with blue, 

 while in the text it is described as "entirely red." It is not improbal^le, 

 too, that some of the Macaws ascribed to the We.st Indies, such as Anodor- 

 hynchus purpurascens, were originally described from cage birds brought 

 from the continent. The plate of Ara tricolor, based on the Liverpool 

 Mu.seum example, if a faithful reproduction of that specimen, may prove 

 to be some other species (it is to be remembered that we know nothing of 

 the colors of the species which fonnerly lived in Hayti), .since it lacks the 

 strong yellow color on the back of the neck, as well as the yellow markings 

 on the sides of the body, and yellow edgings to the red feathers on the 

 mantle. In the account of this species the author enumerates five speci- 

 mens known to him, "two in the British Museum, one in Paris, one in 

 Leyden, one in Liverpool." To this list we can easily add six more: two 

 in Washington, one in Boston, and three in Cuba, while Gundlach prob- 

 ably sent others to Germany. Had the author addressed inquiries to the 

 various mu.seums at home and abroad, his census of specimens in this and 

 many other species would have been more nearly complete. 



Notornis alba of White (or Shaw), is accredited to Norfolk Island, while 

 N . stanleyi is given as the species from Lord Howe's Island, but it seems 

 probable that N'. alba is the one from the last-named locality. White's 

 account (not given by Rothschild) is as follows: "They also found on it 

 [Lord Howe's Island, at that time newly discovered] in great plenty, a 

 kind of fowl, resembling much the Guinea fowl in shape and .size, but widely 

 different in colour; they being in general all white, with a red fle.shy sub- 

 stance rising like a cock's comb, from the head, and not unlike a piece of 



