^°'- ^^1 Recent Literature. ^11 



1903 J ^ 



ceeds to trace the various stages of e\olution in the order of their proba- 

 ble occurrence, illustrating the conditions found in a 4arge nmnber of 

 species by admirable figures. And it maj be said that only one who has 

 done similar work can fully appreciate the time and labor that this study 

 must have entailed. At the end we are presented with a table giving a 

 sj'stematic arrangement of the divisions of the parrots defined by the 

 ■characters offered by the lingual muscles and hyoid. By these the parrots 

 are divided into three families, Loriidje, Nestorida' and Psittacidie ; and 

 here the work of Mr. Mudge may be looked upon as confirming the views 

 of those who have established the first two families on other characters. 

 The Psittacidje are subdivided into two ' Groups,' one of which contains 

 only the Psittaculin;e and Pyrrhulinie while the second consists of seven 

 subfamilies comprising the vast inajority of parrots. To a certain extent 

 the geographical boundaries of the subfamilies agree with the anatomical 

 limits, but we find Caica bracketed with Pyrrhulopsis, and Platycercus 

 with Bolbor/iy'ichits, and the geographic unity is by no means conspicuous, 

 as it is in the divisions of Gray's ' Hand List.' 



It may, perhaps, be a mere personal prejudice, but the Australian region 

 is so well marked ornithologically that it seems a little suspicious to see 

 Australian and South American parrots placed in the same subfamih'. 

 Still every ornithologist is aware that no two schemes for the subdivision 

 of the parrots agree in their minor details and that of Dr. Mudge is con- 

 sistent in using the same class of characters throughout. 



It would have been interesting to have compared the present arrange- 

 ment with the results of Prof. Thompson's study of the cranial characters 

 of parrots but, unfortunately, Thompson failed to put his results into 

 definite shape and we are in the dark as to just what his ideas may be. 



Some might perhaps urge against Prof. Mudge's classification that 

 Stringops is not awarded a sufficiently high rank, being placed with other 

 Australian species in the Cacatuinse, but if Stringops, though specialized 

 in some points is, on the whole, merely a cockatoo of generalized 

 structure this association is what might have been expected on theoreti- 

 cal grounds. 



Finally, it inay be suggested, without in the least wishing to depreciate 

 the most excellent work of Prof. Mudge, that it remains to be seen if an 

 examination of the lingual muscles of any other division of birds will 

 yield as good results as has been afforded in the present instance. The 

 parrots, in structure and habits, are a remarkably homogeneous group of 

 birds and it would seem that the differential evolution of their tongue 

 muscles might be more uniform than in any other group, and con- 

 sequently more available for purposes of classification. — F. A. L. 



Winkenwerder on the Migration of Birds. — In the present paper ^ of 



1 The Migration of Birds, with Special Reference to Nocturnal Flight. By 

 II. A. Winkenwerder. Bull. Wisconsin Nat. Hist. Soc, Vol. II, No. 4, 

 Oct., 1902, pp. 1.77-263, with diagrams and other illustrations. 



