Distribution of Birds. 521 



place, and is likely to do so for a considerable period. It 

 would be easy to criticize it from many points of view ; but 

 the long series of life-like and artistic figures which it gives 

 us will not be easily matched, and the letterpress is a verit- 

 able mine of information, upon the basis of which a new 

 handbook of Western Palsearctic Ornithology might well be 

 built. I commend this subject to some of the younger 

 members of the present Congress, who may find leisure to 

 undertake such a task. 



Prof. Newton^s valuable edition of YarrelFs ' British 

 Birds ^ (7), which I spoke of as in progress in my British 

 Association Address, has been finished by Mr. Howard 

 Saunders, who has also, more recently, issued a most useful 

 nianual of the birds of the British Islands (8) . A large 

 number of local avifaunas of various parts of Great Britain 

 have also been published of late years, so that each county 

 bids fair before long to have a separate history of its birds. 

 I cannot specify these individually, but I may mention by 

 name, as one of the most valuable, Stevenson^s ' Birds of 

 Norfolk' (9), the third and last volume of which has been 

 prepared and issued by Mr. Southwell since the original 

 author's lamented decease *. 



On the Continent during the past 15 years no single publi- 

 cation has been issued on the birds of Europe generally 

 which can be placed in the same category as Mr. Dresser's. 

 But an enormous amount of local work has been done, espe- 

 cially in Germany, Italy, Russia, and Scandinavia. We can 

 hardly say the same of France, where of late years the pro- 

 gress of native Ornithology seems to have been almost in 

 abeyance, except for the occasional appearance of a number 

 of M. Olphe-Galliard's " Contributions a la Faune Ornitho- 

 logique de I'Europe occidentale" (11). In Germany great 



* As regards British Ornithology, 1 may also venture to call attention 

 to the ' List of British Birds ' {10} published by the British Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union in 1883, and prepared principally with the laudable object 

 of inducing the usage of a uniform nomenclature. This was, I believe 

 the precursor of a series of corresponding publications subsequently issued 

 in other countries, and had certainly the merit of setting a good example. 



