130 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



The author gives us an account of two collections made 

 by Mr. A. T. Demery, who has been specially prepared for 

 this service in the Leyden Museum, in Western Liberia. 

 Specimens of 87 species are in the series, of which two, 

 Zosterops demeryi and Z. obsoleta, are described as new to 

 science. Several others are new to Liberia. A single 

 female example of Charadrius forhesi (Shelley, Ibis, 1883, 

 p. 561) was obtained. A series of examples of Hirundo rustica 

 are described, which confirm Sharpe and Dresser's statement 

 that our Swallows arrive in their winter-quarters with the 

 under surface nearly, in some instances quite, white, but 

 shortly after their arrival (not shortly before their departure, 

 as supposed by Sharpe and Dresser) change their colour by 

 moulting into a deep buff, and retain it until they leave for 

 the north again. 



The species of birds known to the author from Liberia are 

 now 238 in number. 



6. Coues's Handbook of Ornithology. 



[Handbook of Field and General Ornithology. A Manual of the 

 structure and classification of Birds, with instructions for collecting and 

 preserving specimens. By Professor Elliott Coues, M.A.., M.D. London : 

 Macmillan, 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 344.] 



This is an English reprint of the introductory portion of 

 Dr. Coues's well-known ' Key to North-American Birds,' 

 published in 1884. Of the character and value of this 

 excellent piece of work we have already expressed ourselves 

 in tolerably emphatic terms (see Ibis, 1885, p. 100), and 

 we need not now repeat them. It may suffice to say that 

 in our opinion there is no information of this sort tbat 

 we are acquainted with so well compiled and so likely to be 

 useful to the ornithological student as that contained in the 

 present essays, and that our best thanks are due to Messrs. 

 Macmillan for reprinting them in this convenient form — only 

 we do not understand why they should have waited so long 

 to do it. And it would have been better perhaps to have 

 arranged with the author to revise the work. Science moves 

 fast now-a-days, and after seven years many statements that 



