276 Recent Ornitliolugical Publications. 



polar " Province " * or " Region " among the principal zoogeo- 

 graphical divisions of the earth's surface ; nevertheless no 

 naturalist who has not some special knowledge of ornithology 

 will be able to avail himself of it in generalizations without great 

 risk of error ; for Dr. von MiddendorflF takes (as do most of the 

 Russian zoologists) very decidedly what are called "lumping" 

 views of species, and many of our friends, without any tendency 

 to exaggerated " splitting," will demur to Hirundo horreorum be- 

 ing regarded as identical with H. rustica, and Pica hudsonica 

 with P. caudata, and so forth. The comparison, which follows 

 (pp. 1015-1017), of Alpine species with those of the High 

 North is in the same strain ; but here there is less danger of 

 going astray. 



Referring (p. 802) to the dwarfish examples of some birds on 

 which distinct species have been founded, as for instance 

 Tringa schinzi, Dr. von Middendorff asserts what we have 

 heard announced before as probable t, namely, that of almost 

 every high-northern species he finds a larger and a smaller 

 race, the existence of which latter he explains by the fact that 

 the young of late broods seldom attain the full size of their 

 parents, their growth being arrested by the severe weather of 

 early autumn, and the increasing scarcity of food at that season. 

 He further declares, and the statement is of some value, that 

 individuals of the smaller race usually interbreed with each 

 other, and seldom with the larger birds. 



An interesting chapter is that on the progressive extension 

 westward of the range of many eastern species (pp. 1052-1056), 

 a fact we believe first noticed by Prof. Lilljeborg (Naumannia, 

 1852, ii. pp. 87-93), and among them Carpodacus erythrinus 

 {cf. Ibis, 1869, p. 226) ; but it is especially worthy of note that 

 the list of these invading species contains so many of those 

 which have of late been recorded as occurring in Western Eu- 

 rope, or even the British Islands, such as Tiirdus sibiricus, Miii- 

 heriza pusilla, E. pityornis, E. rustica, Phylloscopus superciliosus 

 and Lanius phnenicurus, to say nothing of those which have 

 long been known as occasional visitors to our shores, as Turdus 



* Cf. Huxley, V. Z. S. 18G8, p. Glo. 



t Cy. Altiini, J. f. O. 1860, pp. 107-111. 



