Recent Ornithological Publications. 271 



4. German. 



A paper by the late Professor van der Hoeven, written in 1866, 

 and published the following year, only reached us within the 

 last twelve months*. It contains a description and figure of 

 the skeleton of Dromas ardeola, a form respecting the true affi- 

 nities of which widely diflPering opinions have at various times 

 obtained among systematists ; and a good abstract of these 

 opinions is prefixed by the author to his essay. From the 

 osteology it is made plain that the place of the bird is next to 

 the genus Hamatopus ; and we cannot help adverting to the fact 

 that, on the same grounds, Mr. Edward Newton, some years 

 ago (Ibis, 1867. p. 351), regarded it as a Plover — an idea 

 which seems to have originated with Temminck (Rcc. Nouv. de 

 PI. Col. livr. 65), and was afterwards adopted by Van der 

 Hoeven, who in this his last publication has proved its truth. 

 It should be remarked that Mr. Blyth, in urging as he did the 

 separation of Dromas from either the Herons or the Storks (to 

 which it had been formerly considered allied) and its affinity to 

 the Terns (an assignment we cannot commend), did not so 

 much wish to place it among the " Natatorial " birds as desire to 

 show that the Terns and Gulls should not be severed from cer- 

 tain groups usually classed as " Grallatorial " — a view which, in 

 our opinion, is unquestionably correct. 



Two small treatises deserve some notice here on account of 

 the pains bestowed upon them by their respective authors. 

 One is by Herr Friedrich Cramer, on the Significance and Deve- 

 lopment of the Egg in Birds, which is published in the ' Ver- 

 handlungen^ of the Wiirzburg Pbysico-Medical Society (New 

 series, vol. i.) ; but, like the majority of such papers, it throws 

 little light on matters of classification. The other, published in 

 the well-known * Archiv ' of Professors Reichert and Du Bois- 

 Reymond, for 1868, is by Dr. Hugo Magnus of Breslau, and 

 gives an account of his Physiologico-Anatomical Inquiries into 



* Annotationes dieDromade ardeola, Payk. Scripsit .T. van der Hoeven. 

 Dresdfe : 1867. 4to, pp. 16, aud plate. (Separately printed from Nov. 

 Act. Acad. L.-C. Nat.-Cur. vol. xxxiii. French translation in Arch. Nt?er- 

 land. 1868, pp. 281-295. ) 



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