1920 I Recent Literature. 471 



Pittas, the Philepittas of Madagascar and the Xeniscidae of New Zealand, 

 but in the South American Tyrannidae or Formicariidae we find just as 

 much divergence in external characters among species which we feel sure 

 must be closely allied. 



At any rate we cannot think that Mr. Mathews is really serious in the 

 statement quoted above, regarding the work and terminology of the anat- 

 omist, since in his succeeding pages he repeatedly calls for anatomical 

 investigation of Australian birds and states that a description of the skele- 

 tons of the principal types of Muscicapidae would be "worth much more 

 than any series of skins." This is the true scientific spirit and we can 

 hardly think that he would do away with the characters proposed by the 

 anatomist merely because the terminology is meaningless to the student 

 of skins. There is, however, much food for thought in the matter that 

 he has discussed. — W. S. 



McGregor's 'Index to the Genera of Birds'. — In 1889 appeared a 

 work entitled ' Index Generum Avium. A List of the Genera and Sub- 

 genera of Birds,' by F. H. Waterhouse, librarian to the Zoological 

 Society of London. For over thirty years this has constituted an indis- 

 pensable work of reference to all systematic ornithologists and in 1902, 

 1909 and 1917 Dr. C. W. Richmond published in the 'Proceedings of 

 the U. S. National Museum,' three supplements to it, listing not only the 

 generic names proposed for birds in the intervening years, but a list of 

 names overlooked by Waterhouse and another list of names given by 

 him which are not proposed as genera or apply to other groups than birds. 



Mr. McGregor 1 has now given us another volume very similar in scope 

 to that of Waterhouse but bringing the matter up to 1917. He does not 

 base his catalogue upon Waterhouse's 'List' but begins de novo, cata- 

 loguing successively the generic names mentioned in Bonaparte's 'Con- 

 spectus' of 1850 and 1865; Gray's 'Hand-list,' 1869-1871; the 'Catalogue 

 of Birds of the British Museum,' 1874-1895; Sharpe's 'Hand-list,' 1899- 

 1909; DuBois's 'Systema Avium,' 1899-1904; and Richmond's three 

 'Supplements' to Waterhouse. The names thus compiled were then 

 arranged in alphabetical order and under each is given the volume and 

 page reference to all of the above works in which it may have been men- 

 tioned, the reference being printed in heavy-faced type if the name is 

 recognized as valid, and in light-faced type if it is given as a synonym. 

 The author of the name does not appear, nor does the original place of 

 publication, but from the references cited the full history of the name can 

 usually be ascertained and these matters looked up by the investigator. 

 As Waterhouse usually only gave one reference, and that by no means 

 always the original one, Mr. McGregor's plan really leads us directly or 

 indirectly to much more information regarding the name which we are 

 investigating than did the older work. Furthermore the brevity of his 

 references enables him to print the names in three columns to the page 



