l6o Recent Literature. [£"£, 



ginian Nightjar,' shows at once that it is the Night-hawk (Chordeiles 

 •virginianus) and not the Whip-poor-will, as Dr. Sharpe seems to have 

 supposed. As figures of both species are given in the work from which the 

 figure is taken, it is evident that the wrong figure was accidentia selected. 

 As already said, the work as a whole is well worth v of the patronage of 

 the public, for if it fails to tell all there is to know about birds, it gives a 

 vast amount of interesting and trustworthy information in a small com- 

 pass. The illustrations add greatly to its value and usefulness, but they 

 are for the most part old acquaintances that have previouslv seen service 

 repeatedly in other connections. — J. A. A. 



Saunders and Salvin's Catalogue of the Gaviae and Tubinares. — 

 Volume XXV of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds 1 contains the 

 Gavise, or the Terns, Gulls, and Skuas, by Mr. Howard Saunders, and the 

 Tubinares, or the Petrels and Albatrosses, by Mr. Osbert Salvin. The 

 authorities of the British Museum have thus been fortunate enough to 

 •secure the two leading specialists on these difficult orders of birds for their 

 ■elaboration. 



The Gavise, or the Longipennes of the A. (). V. Check-List, of which 115 

 species are here recognized, are arranged in twenty genera and two 

 families — Larid'se and Stercorariid;i\ the Rynchopidae being treated as 

 a subfamily of Larid.v and placed between the Terns and Gulls. It is not 

 clear why the name Gavise, proposed by Bonaparte in 1S50 for a rather 

 extensive and heterogeneous group, should be preferred to Longipennes, 

 as restricted and defined by Nitzsch in 1S40, or forty years before the term 

 Gavise was narrowed down to its present signification. Neither is it evi- 

 dent why the Skimmers should be interposed between the Terns and 

 ■Gulls, especially as it is admittedly a difficult matter to draw a satisfactory 

 •dividing line between the Terns and Gulls. Yet we have in the present 

 •work a subfamily Sterninse separated from a subfamily Larinie by a group 

 so distinct from either of these reallv coalescing groups as to be often of 

 late given the rank of a distinct family. 



Passing to details of special interest to American ornithologists, we note 

 the following: Hydrochelidon surinamensis is separated specifically from 

 //. nigra, on the ground probably that Mr. Saunders does not recognize 

 subspecies: forms that are regarded as entitled to recognition being 



1 Catalogue | of the | Gaviae and Tubinares | in the | Collection | of the | 

 British Museum. | — ■ | Gaviae | (Terns, (lulls, and Skuas) | by | Howard Saun- 

 ders. I Tubinares (Petrels and Albatrosses) | by [ Osbert Salvin. | London: 

 Printed by order of the Trustees. | Sold by | Longmans & Co., 39 Paternoster 

 Row; I B. Quaritch, 15 Piccadilly; Dulau & Co., 37 Soho Square, W. ; | 

 Kegan Paul & Co., Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road; | and at the | 

 British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, S. W. [ 1896. = Cata- 

 logue of the Birds in the British Museum, Vol. XXV. Svo, pp. i-xv, 1-475, 

 pll. i-viii. ' 



