290 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



took the astronomers to Kerguelen^s Land for the transit of 

 1875. The ornithological results of the voyage were given 

 by Dr. Cabanis and Herr Eeichenow in a paper published 

 in the ' Journal fiir Ornithologie ' in 1876 [cf. Ibis, 1877, 

 p. 239) . But further details will be found in this volume, 

 which, moreover, contains coloured figures of Trichoglossus 

 flavicans, Ptilopus irisolitus, and Phalacrocorax verrucosus 

 (apparently copied from the ^Journal fiir Ornithologie '), 

 and six plates devoted to the development of Megapodius 

 eremita, Halodroma urinatrix, Eudyptes chrysocome, and 

 other species. 



59. Thompson on the Systematic Position of Hesperornis. 



[Studies from the Museum of Zoology in University College, Dundee. 

 Edited by D'Arcy W. Thompson.— Yol. I. No. 10. On the Systematic 

 Position of Hesperornis. By Prof. D'Arcy W. Thompson. 4to. Dundee : 

 1890.] 



For some years in his laboratory the author of this memoir 

 has been accustomed to teach that '^ the group of Toothed 

 Birds, or Odontornithes, of Marsh is an unreal and illusory 

 one." He now sets to work to prove this by instituting a 

 " close comparison, bone by bone, of the osteological cha- 

 racters of Hesperornis and Colymbus'' He comes to the 

 conclusion "that, from purely osteological characters, the 

 wide difference between Hesperornis and any Ratite, and its 

 close resemblance to Colymbus or to Podiceps, is clear and 

 patent. From these characters it is a Colymbine bird, of 

 great size and prodigious swimming power, which, while losing 

 its wings and sternal keel, and otherwise somewhat modifying 

 its shoulder- girdle, as the faculty of flight degenerated, has 

 retained in its brain-case, its palate, its mandibles, its ver- 

 tebrae, its sternum, pelvis, and hind limbs, resemblance almost 

 amounting to identity with the existing Colymbi." 



60. Townsend on Birds collected by the U.S. Fish-Com- 

 mission S.S. 'Albatross.'' 



[Scientific Results of Explorations by the U.S. Fish-Commission 

 Steamer 'Albatross.' — XIV. Birds from the Coast of Western North 



J 



