1S90.] Recent Literature. 'J J 



followed is reversed and altered, the first species mentioned being Turdus 

 mustelinus, the last, Zenaidura macroura. The author's vast experience 

 in descriptive work permits him to handle his subject in a masterly manner; 

 there are analyses to the higher groups, families, and genera, and 

 keys to the last which define all the then recognized species and 

 subspecies of Eastern North American birds belonging to them. This is 

 new matter; the generic, subgeneric, and specific diagnoses and descrip- 

 tions, as before stated, are frequently quoted, but they are taken from a wor- 

 thy source, and the birds have not to our knowledge changed perceptibly 

 since they were written, though, it is true, we do now see many things in 

 the light of a new understanding, which were then obscure. We would 

 not then, for instance, have considered Sturnella magna ?ieglecta a species, 

 in fact its recognition as a race was open to question, but we find on page 

 314, it is accorded full specific rank. Nor would we then have admitted the 

 author's earlier view, to which he now returns, concerning the specific dis- 

 tinctness of Quiscalus quisc.ula (bucks. It is true these views are not yet 

 accepted; but there is evidently a tendency in this direction. It will be 

 quite useless here to go further into this portion of the work; the author's 

 name is a sufficient guarantee of its value and accuracy, and we hope the 

 edition will permit its being placed in the hands of every student of North 

 American ornithology, if not in the hands of every student of ornithology 

 whatever be the country to which he devotes himself, for the model here 

 presented is in every respect worthy his attention. It is a reviewer's duty 

 to speak with equal candor of both the good and bad sides of the book 

 before him, but we must confess this volume is possessed of a one-sidedness 

 which renders it barren ground for the most fault-finding critic; the typo- 

 graphical errors are for the greater part unimportant and evidently 

 beyond the author's control, and when we consider the limited time 

 allowed him for the completion of his task, which was further curtailed 

 by the official duties of a busy life, we can only admire the energy and 

 ability which has enabled him to accomplish it so quickly and so 

 well.— F. M. C. 



Menzbier's Ornithology of Turkestan.*— The first part of Menzbier's 

 great work on the ornithology of Turkestan, recently received, contains 

 four colored plates and over one hundred pages of text, besides the long 

 preface explanatory of the origin and scope of the work. The author 

 has set before himself the serious task of treating monographically all the 

 species of Turkestan, and the lands adjacent, — a region extending from 

 the Lower Volga to Mongolia, and from southwest Siberia to Pamir. 

 The work is based primarily on the immense collections and notes gath- 

 ered by the late Dr. N. A. Sewertzow during his twenty-one years' explora- 

 tion of this region under the auspices of the Russian Goverment. Dr. Se- 

 wertzow unfortunately died at the beginning of his work on his ornithologi- 

 cal collections, leaving it to be carried forward by his devoted friend, 



*Omithologie du Turkestan et des Pays adjacents. Par M. le Docteur M. A. Menz- 

 bier. Premier livraisqn. Avec un Atlas de 4 Planches. Moscow, 1888, 4to, pp. viil-h 

 .13, 



