Recently published Ornithological Works. 115 



national Ornithological Congress of 1884 at Vienna were the 

 establishment by the Minister of Agriculture of an " Uffizio 

 Ornitologico" at Florence, in connection with the well-known 

 collection of Italian Vertebrates in that city, and the nomina- 

 tion of Dr. Giglioli as the Director of the new Office. The 

 Director commenced his duties by the preparation and pub- 

 lication of the excellent ' Avifauna Italica/ noticed in this 

 Journal in 1886 (Ibis, 1886, p. 516). He has now taken a 

 second step in advance. Like Austria, Germany, and some 

 other countries, Italy, under Dr. Giglioli's guidance, has 

 inaugurated a large corps of observers scattered over the 

 kingdom, who report to the " Uffizio Ornitologico " on the 

 birds of their different districts. The list of these collabo- 

 rators is, it will be seen, a long one. The present volume gives 

 us an abstract of their reports on each of the 450 species enu- 

 merated in the ' Avifauna Italica/ These are systematically 

 arranged under the generic and specific names adopted in the 

 Avifauna, to which a full list of the various local names is 

 appended. Thus, on turning to the name of any particular 

 species, we find the mode and time of its occurrence in Italy, 

 from north to south, and in Sicily and Sardinia, succinctly set 

 forth. An excellent idea of its distribution is thus gathered 

 at a glance. 



It is interesting to note that all researches in Sardinia 

 have as yet failed in ascertaining the occurrence of Sitta 

 whiteheadi in that island. It would appear therefore that 

 this species is absolutely restricted to Corsica. 



15. Leverkiihn on the Legendary History of the Hoopoe. 



[Der Wiedehopf in den Legenden der Araber. Von Paul Leverkiihn. 

 Zool. Garten, 1889, p. 173.] 



Herr P. Leverkiihn translates into German, from Curzon's 

 ' Monasteries of the Levant,' a curious Arabic legend about 

 King Solomon and the Hoopoe (Upupa epops). Apparently 

 Herr Leverkiihn only knows Curzon's work from an American 

 edition, 1856. We may therefore inform him that this 

 well-known book was originally published in London by 

 Murray in 1849. 



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