VOl 19oJ 111 ] Recent Literature. 351 



anites oceanicus), which " resorts in thousands to Laurie Is. to nest on the 

 cliffs of its remarkably extensive coast-line." This species is one of the 

 last to reach the islands in spring (Nov. 11), and one of the earliest to 

 leave (March 23).— J. A. A. 



Menegaux and Hellmayr on the Passeres Tracheophones of the Paris 

 Museum. — As indicated by the title, this important series of papers 1 is 

 a critical revision of the American Tracheophones contained in the Paris 

 Museum of Natural History, with special reference to species of supposed 

 doubtful standing, and to the actual types of species contained in the 

 French National Museum. The specimens of this group are said to num- 

 ber several thousands, and apparently represent about a third of the 

 known species, including five here described as new. About 120 species 

 are represented by types, and a number of others by cotypes. Here are 

 preserved the types and other material resulting from the French voy- 

 ages of exploration made in the early part of the last century, as those of 

 d'Orbigny, Castelnau, Deville, A. St.-Hilaire, etc. Much of this historic 

 material, the basis of our knowledge of many of the species of this group, 

 has neither been studied anew nor carefully examined, according to these 

 authors, by any recent investigators, with the result that doubt has some- 

 times been expressed as to the validity of some of the species. Some of 

 the types had been lost sight of in the mass of specimens, being without 

 scientific names, but it has been possible to rescue and identify them " with 

 certainty " through various clues furnished by their labels. A few types 

 appear to have quite disappeared, but among those here catalogued and 

 commented upon are the types of 20 species described by Lafresnaye and 

 d'Orbigny, of 9 described by Lafresnaye, of 13 described by Des Murs, of 

 12 described by Yieillot, of 11 described by Lesson, of 8 described by 

 Pucheran, and of a smaller number described by various other authors. 



Of special interest to American ornithologists is a statement in reference 

 to the collection of Baron Lafresnaye, sold after his death to the Boston 

 Society of Natural History. This is to the effect that E. Verreaux, a 

 natural history dealer, before placing the collection on sale, labeled and 

 catalogued the specimens, and indicated many as types which have no 

 right to be so considered. Upon the authority of these indications Amer- 

 ican ornithologists have assumed, with apparently good reason, that the 

 types of various species described by Lafresnaye and d'Orbigny in their 

 preliminary papers on d'Orbigny 's collection, published in the 'Magazin 

 de Zoologie,' were really those so indicated in the Lafresnaye Collection. 



1 Etudes des especes critiques et des types du groupe des Passereaux tracheophones 

 de l'Amerique tropicale appartenant aux Collections du Museum. Par MM. A. 

 Menegaux et C.-E. Hellmayr. I. Conopophagidgs, II. Hylactidgs, Bull, du Mus. 

 d'histoire naturelle [de Paris], 1905, pp. 372-381. III. Dendrocolaptides, Mern. 

 de la Soc'. d'hist. nat. d'Autun, XIX, 1906, pp. 43-126, (also separate, repaged). IV. 

 Formicariidgs, Bull, de la Soc. Philomat. de Paris, 1906, pp. 24-58. 



