204< Recently published Ornithological Works. 



Cuckoo, but the main object of his pamphlet is, no doubt, 

 to reproduce four admirable photographs, which he tells us 

 were taken from nature by Mr. J. P. Millar, at the instigation 

 of Mr. John Craig, who was carrying out a series of inves- 

 tigations upon the subject. Of these, three shew the nestling 

 Cuckoo ejecting a young bird or an egg from the nest, while 

 the fourth exhibits the intruder living in harmony, at an age 

 of about eleven days, with a young Meadow-Pipit. 



66. ZitteVs ' Palaeontology, , vol. ii. 



[Text-book of Palaeontology. B}' Karl A. von Zittel. English edition, 

 translated and edited by Charles E. Eastman, Ph.D. Vol. II. London : 

 Macmillan.] 



The recently issued second volume of the English trans- 

 lation of ZittePs ' Text-book of Palaeontology ' contains the 

 part relating to Aves, which has been revised, and to a great 

 extent rewritten, by Mr. F. A. Lucas, of the U.S. National 

 Museum at Washington. It must be carefully studied by 

 all who are interested in fossil birds. The classification 

 employed is practically that of Stejneger's ' Standard Natural 

 History.' 



We extract a very salient passage from the intro- 

 duction : — 



" The difficulties attending the classification of birds are 

 at once their great general similarity of structure and their 

 numerous adaptive modifications, sometimes slight, some- 

 times so great as to obscure characters of real value. There 

 are, besides, a certain number of aberrant forms, the exact 

 position of which is a matter of uncertainty, and others in 

 which there are departures more or less pronounced from 

 the genera] structure of the group in which they should 

 obviously be placed. For it must be constantly borne in 

 mind that in palaeornithology we are not dealing with the 

 entire Class of birds, but only with a certain portion of it, 

 since the number of known fossil birds is very small, and it 

 is consequently impossible to trace the lines of descent of 

 existing species ; we do not even have broken lines to guide 

 us, but merely isolated dots to indicate their probable 



