462 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



middle of numerous other pieces of work, to prepare the volume 

 of 470 pages now before us. It contains a catalogue of the 

 skeletons and other osteological specimens in the well-known 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and has evidently- 

 been compiled with great care and attention. The series 

 embraces no less than 2380 objects, and although some of 

 the groups are very imperfectly represented {e.g. Tracheo- 

 phonse, Trogones, and Crypturi), there is probably no other 

 collection of the kind of equal extent — certainly not one so 

 well catalogued. 



The arrangement employed in the present volume is that 

 of Mr, Seebohm, with some slight modifications. Numerous 

 woodcuts are introduced into the text, and add materially to 

 the usefulness of the volume. Some of these are old friends, 

 but there is a valuable set of illustrations of the crania, 

 which are beautifully executed. We could have wished, 

 however, that " Letters as before " had not been appended 

 to so many of them. It would have given so little trouble 

 to the author to have repeated them, and would have saved 

 so much to the student ! 



88. Shufeldt on the American Pygopodes. 



f [Concerning the Taxonomy of the North- Anitrican Pygopodes, based 

 upon their Osteology. By R. W, Shufeldt, C.M.Z.S. Journ. Anat. and 

 Phys. xxvi. p. 199.] 



The author states his opinion that the "Pygopodes con- 

 stitute a natural suborder of Birds, consisting only of the 

 Loons and Grebes, and excluding the Auks.^' These two 

 families he proposes to raise to the rank of '' super-families," 

 as " Podicipoidea " and " Urinatoroidea," and gives a sum- 

 mary of the chief osteological characters that distinguish 

 them. The Pygopodes are believed to be descended from 

 ''the same ancestral stock" to which the extinct toothed 

 bird of Cretaceous times, Hesperornis, belonged. 



89. Stejmger on Japanese Birds. 



[Notes on Japanese Birds contained in the Science College Museum, 

 Imperial University, Tokyo, Japan. By Leonhard Stejneger. Proc. U.S 

 Nat. Mus. xiv. p. 489.] 



