Recently published Ornithological Works. 163 



18. Legge's ' Birds of Ceijlon' 



[A History of the Birds of Ceylon. By Captain Vincent Legge, R.A. 

 Part iii. (concluding the work), 4to. London: 1880. Published by 

 the author.] 



We heartily congratulate Captain Legge upon the conclu- 

 sion of his handsome volume, Avhich, in our opinion, is as 

 good a bit of real earnest Avork as any that has been accom- 

 plished of late years in our department of zoology. The 

 'Birds of Ceylon/ as finished by the issue of part iii., con- 

 stitutes a bulky work of 1238 pages and 34 well coloured 

 plates, in which nearly all the species peculiar to the island 

 are figured. There is, besides, a map, to illustrate the chief 

 natural divisions of the Ceylonese avifauna, such as ought to 

 accompany every geographical work on natural history. The 

 plates given with part iii. contain figures of Gallus lafayettii, 

 cJ et ? , Galloperdix bicalcarata, and figures of the eggs of 

 the following species — Buchanga leucopygialis, Pomatorhinus 

 melanurus, Hirundo hyperythra, Pyctorhis nasaJis, Rubigula 

 melanictera, Malacocercus rufescens, Acridotheres melano- 

 sternus, Turdus spilopterus, Galloperdix bicalcarata, Gallus 

 lafayettii, Eulabes ptilogenys, Megalama flavifrons, Drymoeca 

 insularis, Zosterops ceylonensis, Mania kelaarti, Alcippe nigri- 

 frons, Pellorneum fuscicapillum. 



Capt. Legge will forgive us, we are sure, if we call his 

 attention to two or three errors in his nomenclature which 

 ought not to be followed in quoting his work. " Cyanus " 

 (p. 460), the specific name of the Hock-Thrush, is a substan- 

 tive, and should not be written "^cyana]' on the other hand 

 " Turdus spiloptera" (p. 451) should be " spilopterus ;" nor 

 can a bishop, '' episcopus" (according to orthodox practice), 

 be of the feminine gender {e2nscopa), as is written, p. 1118. 

 Again, Chrysophlegma is a neuter substantive {^Xiyfia — 

 flamma), and claims to agree with a neuter adjective {xantho- 

 derum, nee xanthoderus). 



There is also a slip, p. 796, in crediting Porphyrio alleni 

 to Capt. Shelley, whereas it is a well-known West-African 

 species, originally discovered by T. R. H. Thomson during 

 the Niger Expedition, and described by him in 1842. In 



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