Recently published Ornithological Works. 247 



with the sex of the birds. The parents were extremely 

 anxious about their chicks and terribly restless, and to this, 

 I fear, is to be attributed the fact that I did not succeed in 

 rearing the young. 



Although the chicks soon began to feed and grew very 

 rapidly at first, I soon observed that one after the other 

 got something wrong with its breathing-organs, and to my 

 great disappointment they died successively, so that the last 

 was found dead a fortnight after they had been hatched. 

 All that I can add is that, as is usual with chicks, the 

 intensity of the coloration gradually diminished as they got 

 older, and in particular the brightness of the yellow of the 

 head and the depth of the black in front of the eyes slowly 

 diminished, so that even when a week old the delicate glory 

 of it had largely disappeared. 



Perhaps next season the chicks (if I get any) will live, so 

 that I may observe what the first plumage is like ! 



The chick of Chen rossi differs from that of Chen hyper - 

 boreus chiefly in having a shorter and comparatively higher 

 bill and in the want of a blackish stripe over the head, which 

 is present in C. hyperboreus. The chick of C. hyperboreus 

 is also darker, especially on the back, and of a more olive- 

 green colour, while the down is less dense. 



XXIV. — Notices of recent Ornithological Publications. 



[Continued from p. 132.] 



40. Allen on Species and Subspecies. 



[So-called Species and Subspecies. By J. A. Allen, lleprinted from 

 ' Science/ n. s. xvi. pp. 383-386, 1902.] 



Mr. Allen, while viewing with much regret the extremely 

 " fine splitting" into subspecies now so prevalent, contends 

 that the expert, and not the layman, should be judge in such 

 matters ; for many forms, perfectly distinct on comparison, 

 cannot well be described in terms that give a true idea of 

 their value. He calls attention to the fact that the A. O. U. 

 constantly refuses to recognise subspecies which are not in a 



