Vol. XVII 4 
aon Peecent Literature. i 89 
Stark’s Birds of South Africa. Volume I.! Thirty-three years ago 
appeared Mr. E. L. Layard’s ‘The Birds of South Africa,’ published at 
Cape Town in 1867, a new edition of which, revised and augmented by 
Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, was brought out in London, 1875-84. Layard’s 
unpretentious first edition was for many years a most useful handbook 
on South African birds, and for many years was the only one available 
for English readers. It was greatly amplified and modernized by Dr. 
Sharpe, but, through the rapid progress of our knowledge of South 
African ornithology, it had again fallen behind and was becoming anti- 
_quated when Dr. Stark took up the work, for which he was so well fitted 
through his intimate personal acquaintance with the birds in life, acquired 
during many years of research and extensive travel in South Africa. 
It is greatly to be regretted that before his task was finished he should 
have fallen a victim in the unhappy strife now raging in that country. 
After spending some time in London last year to see his first volume 
through the press, he returned to South Africa in September. On the 
outbreak of hostilities, he joined the medical staff of the British Army 
as a volunteer, and on Nov. 19, 1899, was killed at Ladysmith by a shell. 
Apparently the second volume was not well advanced, as ‘The Ibis’ for 
January, 1900 (p. 220), says: “We fear that it will be very difficult to 
find anyone to continue the work for which our much-lamented friend 
was specially competent from his long personal studies of the birds of 
South Africa in their native wilds.” 
The present volume ‘is the first of a series in which it is proposed to 
give an account of the Fauna of Africa south of the Zambesi and Cunéné 
Rivers,” under the general title ‘The Fauna of ‘South Africa,’ and under 
the editorship of Mr. W. L. Sclater, Director of the South African 
Museum at Cape Town. The birds will occupy several volumes, of which 
the first, here under notice, includes about one half of the Passerine 
birds. In the general plan and arrangement, the Bird volumes are similar 
to Mr. Eugene Oates’s ‘ Birds of British India.’ The classification adopted, 
as regards the higher groups, is that proposed by Dr. P. L. Sclater in 
1880, which divides birds into 21 orders. The subdivisions of the South 
African Oscines are mainly as proposed by Dr. Sharpe in 1891, and 
include 20 families, of which 12 are treated in the present volume, and 
include 182 species and subspecies. Of these 3 belong to the family 
Corvide, 16 to the Sturnide, 3 to the Oriolidz, 60 to the Ploceide, 23 to 
the Fringillidz, 29 to the Alaudide, 19 to the Motacillide, 16 to the Nec- 
tariniide, 1 to the Certhiide, 4 to the Promeropide, 4 to the Zosteropide, 
and 6 to the Paride. 2 
The bird life of South Africa is, of course, of a strikingly different type 
from that of North America, the families prevailing there being entirely 
1 The | Birds of South Africa | By | Arthur C. Stark, M. B. | Vol. I. | With 
a map and illustrations | London | R. H. Porter | 7 Princes Street, Cavendish 
Square, W. | 1900 — 8vo, pp. i-xxx + 1-322, So text cuts. 
