Recent Ornithological Publications. 523 



author discusses the various causes that have led almost to the 

 extinction of so many birds in the colony^ most of which causes, 

 we fear, are still in operation, and are such that, unless some coun- 

 teracting means be taken, they will in a few years utterly destroy 

 the native avifauna, replacing it by a heterogeneous mixture sup- 

 plied by the Acclimatization Societies. The enormous sggs laid 

 by our old friend the Kiwi in the Regent's Park are pretty well 

 known ; but the wild Apteryx australis surpasses the efforts of 

 the captive bird, and an egg in the Canterbury Museum mea- 

 sured 5 inches 1 line by 3 inches 4 lines. Anarhynchus frontalis 

 does not seem to be so rare a species as was thought ; and its 

 eggs and young have been discovered by Mr. Potts, the former 

 usually laid on the pebbles of some dry river-bed. In another 

 ornithological paper Capt. Hutton records the addition to the 

 list of New-Zealand birds of (Estrelata gouldi {of. Ibis, 1869, 

 pp. 351, 352) and Nyroca australis, and he also has some notes 

 on the introduction of Pheasants into the islands. His paper on 

 the flight of the Albatros, which we before noticed {supra, p. 122), 

 is also reprinted, as well as some comments upon it by Mr. S. 

 Webb, of Otago ; but as these are entirely mathematical in their 

 kind, we need not dwell upon them here. The last contribu- 

 tion to ornithology in the volume is a brief abstract of some pre- 

 liminary notes (p. 403) on a fossil Penguin, of which, we doubt 

 not, we shall hear more in due time. 



12. Indian. 



To give his ornithological brethren in India the means of 

 knowing what will be most useful for them, Mr. Allan Hume 

 has commenced the publication of a series of 'Rough Notes'^ 

 transcribed from various sources. Many of them are original 

 remarks, by himself or his numerous correspondents, which have 

 not before been printed, while the remainder are extracts from 

 the pages of * The Ibis,' or from different standard works of a 

 kind not easily carried about, even if they are possessed, by 

 Englishmen in India ; and the intent of the whole is that it 



* My Scrap-book : or Roiigh Notes on Indian Oology and Ornithology. 

 Edited by Allan Hume. Part I. Raptores. — No. 1. Calcutta: 1869 

 (London : E. Bumpus, Ilolborn Bars). 8vo, pp. 237. 



