Bibliographical Notices. 475 



them by shipwreck on their way to this country, escaping with 

 difficulty with his life. After his second shipwi'eck, and when 

 no longer young, he left England to form a third collection ; and 

 that shared the same fate as the preceding two ; so that we can 

 only use his drawings and the few materials which were then in 

 our hands. Now Dr. Anderson observes that he has examined 

 45 living specimens of one and 120 living specimens of another 

 species; but, curiously enough, his paper contains nothing that 

 is not to be found in Hamilton's and Hardwicke's drawings, 

 and in my Synopsis, and other works published years ago. 



The two Indian mud-tortoises are : — first, the Testudo 

 gotagliol of Hamilton, the Trionyx javanicus of Geoffroy 

 St.-Hilaire, and the Emyda javanica of Schweigger, which 

 are characterized in my Synopsis before quoted by the very 

 characters which Dr. Anderson gives to distinguish them. 

 The second is Trionyx hurum of Hamilton, which is described 

 and figured, just as Dr. Anderson describes it, at p. 47 of my 

 Synopsis, and figured at t. x in the same work, from Hard- 

 wicke's drawing ; but perhaps Dr. Anderson thinks it for- 

 gotten. 



Dr. Anderson observes that the skulls of these two species 

 are very different — certainly no new observation ; for one is 

 the type of the modern restricted genus Trionyx^ and the 

 other the type of the genus Potamochehfs, established on the 

 differences in the skulls. The skulls of both have been re- 

 peatedly figured. Truly Dr. Anderson seems to have learned 

 little since he attended my late esteemed friend's lectm-es. 

 Fortunately there are several very good zoologists and com- 

 parative anatomists in India, who are doing good work and 

 extending the science. 



BIBLIOGKAPHICAL NOTICES. 



A History of the Birds of New Zealand. By Walter Lawrt Buller, 

 Sc.D., F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. London (John Van Voorst) and New 

 Zealand (the Author) : 1872. 4to. Part I. With 72 pages and 

 7 coloured plates. 



The first work professing to give a complete account of the orni- 

 thology of New Zealand must needs he an important one. This 

 ornithic fauna presents so many points of general biological in- 

 terest, that only those of the islands cast of Africa can be com- 

 pared with it. The last remnant of a former continent, and pro- 

 bably the oldest country on the face of our globe, New Zealand is, 

 or was, tenanted by ornithic forms which have arrived at the verge 



32* 



