512 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



is "Pallaschi's Regulus"! They will also, we have no doubt, 

 be grateful for the information i-especting the Red Grouse, that 

 " Cette espece habite les endroits tourbeux de FEcosse riches 

 en bruyeres ; elle est plus rare en Irlande et ne parvieut qu^acci- 

 dentellement en Angleterre," and, further, " Le Lagopus scoticus 

 ne dilFere du L. saliceti qu'en ce qu'il ne se revet pas, com me ce 

 dernier, d'un plumage blanc pour la saison d^hiver. II est done 

 probable, comme le fait observer M. le docteur Gloger, que cet 

 oiseau a ete introduit, il y a quelques siecles, en Grande Bre- 

 tagne par des amateurs de chasse." What an encouraging re- 

 flection for the acclimatizers ! 



4. German. 

 We cannot pretend to do justice in a few cursory remarks to 

 the recent elaborate work of Drs. Finsch and Hartlaub*. Far 

 more abundant leisure than for many months — we might almost 

 say for years — has been at our disposal would be required to 

 enable us to speak of the ' Birds of Eastern Africa ' in any but 

 general terms. Every page of the bulky volume shows the 

 laborious care that has been exercised or even lavished on 

 this labour of love : and if the book is to be at all adequately 

 reviewed, we must bequeath the task to our successor. To say 

 merely that it will be for many years to come the standard au- 

 thority on the subject of which it treats is only to say that the 

 work is just what might have been expected from its erudite 

 authors, and we confess ourselves utterly incompetent to enter 

 upon its details. With all this, however, we observe with regret 

 that the ultra-purist theories in the matter of nomenclature for 

 which the younger author is distinguished have been so far 

 yielded to by the elder. It seems to us that in following the 

 letter of the supposed principle of scientific name-making, he 

 has lost sight of its spirit and has altogether disregarded the 

 practice of the highest classical writers, who (as there is abund- 

 ant evidence to prove) seldom hesitated, when it suited their 



* Baron Carl Claus von der Decken's Reisen in Ost-Afrika. Vierter 

 Band : Die Vogel Ost-Afrikas von Dr. O. Finsch and Dr. G. Hartlaub. 

 Mit 11 Tafeln in Buntdruck, n. d. Natur gez. von O. Finsch, Leipzig 

 und Heidelberg : 1870. Imp. 8vo, pp. 897. 



