° 1914 ] Recent Literature. 261 



a work of reference which will be in much demand but which on account of 

 its costliness wiU be available to but few who have not access to the larger 

 scientific Ubraries. — W. S. 



Reichenow's 'Die Vogel.' ^ — The subtitle 'Handbook of Systema- 

 tic Ornithology ' well defines this important work. We have had numer- 

 ous works on birds in which the famiUes and some of the leading genera 

 and species are described but which make no pretence of completeness 

 beyond the higher groups. There are also Hand-Lists of species which are 

 merely lists with the briefest possible statement of geographical distribution. 

 Here, however, is a work which presents the bird life of the world in syste- 

 matic order and attempts to mention all the more distinct species by name 

 with a brief description and statement of geographic range, presented in 

 the case of the larger genera in the form of a ' key.' There are full diag- 

 noses of families, subfamilies and genera accompanied frequently by keys 

 while numerous text figures and references to other works add to the 

 utility of the text. 



The author has had to use his own judgment as to how many species 

 deserve mention under each genus, and as this is purely a matter of per- 

 sonal opinion, others will of course differ with him in some cases. Under 

 Buieo the North American species mentioned are borealis, swainsoni, 

 brachyurus and albicaudatus, but lineatus and platypterus are omitted. 

 This is perhaps an oversight as such closelj^ related forms as Archibuteo 

 lagopus and sandi-johannis both appear. 



On the whole however Dr. Reichenow has. we think, been very successful 

 in his difficult undertaking. With the constantly increasing number of 

 geographic races that are being named — many of them binomially — it is 

 becoming more and more necessary, for practical purposes, to have the more 

 ob\nously distinct forms picked out in some way or other, and the present 

 attempt is therefore particularly welcome. As an indication of how com- 

 plete Dr. Reichenow's treatment is I have compared the number of species 

 mentioned by him under several families with those given in Sharpe's 

 Hand-List. The latter, of course, includes numerous shghtly differenti- 

 ated subspecies which naturally have no place in a work such as ' Die 

 Vogel.' 



Platycercidse Reichenow 73, Sharpe 84 



Carpophagidse " 75 " 81 



Ibidida; " 28 " 34 



ColymbidjB " 18 " 25 



In the matter of genera the author is decidedly conservative while in his 

 nomenclature he fails to follow the International Code. We find Vultur 



* Die Vogel. Handbuch der systematischen Ornithologie von Anton Reichenow. 

 Zwei Bande. — Erster Band, mit einer Karte und 185 Textbildern nach der Natnr 

 gezeichnet von G. Krause. Stuttgart. Verlag von Ferdinand Enke. 1913. Roy. 

 8vo. pp. 1-529. Price, 15 marks. Thie Second Volume to appear in the summer 

 of 1914. 



