Recently published Ornithological Works. 449 



rapidly. We have now before us a volume on the Birds of 

 Essex, for which the author tells us he has been " collecting 

 information and materials for fifteen years."" It seems to 

 fully correspond in completeness to the time spent upon it, 

 for it contains not only an excellent account of the birds 

 met with within the limits of the county, but also an essay 

 upon its physical features, biographical notices of Essex 

 ornithologists (among whom we see the familiar names of 

 Bree, Doubleday, Hoy, and Legge), descriptions of the most 

 important collections of birds within the county, an account 

 of its decoys, and a list of previously published works on the 

 same subject. Mr. Christy's volume is, in fact, well planned 

 and well got up, and has the great merit of not being too bulky. 

 We must, however, confess that we do not much like some of 

 the woodcuts, although it is possible that, as the preface says, 

 they may " largely add to the popularity of the work." Some 

 of them, however, are familiar friends of great merit. Five 

 " British Birds " are specially claimed as having been first 

 met with in Essex. These are the Alpine Accentor, the 

 Blue-headed Wagtail, the Adriatic Gull, the Scopoli's Sooty 

 Tern, and the Pheasant (!), the first record of the occurrence 

 of the last-named bird in England being in 1059 (cf. Ibis, 

 1869, p. 358). 



84. Clarke on the Birds of Jan May en Island. 



("The Birds of Jan Mayen Island. Communicated, with Annotations, 

 by W. Eagle Clarke, F.R.S. Zoologist, 1890, pp. 1-16, 41-51.] 



Mr. Eagle Clarke has communicated to the ' Zoologist ' a 

 translation of Dr. Fischer and A. v. Pelzeln's joint paper 

 on the birds collected and observed in Jan Mayen Island 

 during the sojourn there of the Austro-Hungarian Expe- 

 dition in 1882-83, and has added some excellent annotations 

 thereto. We have already noticed the original paper (Ibis, 

 1887, p. 106), but Mr. Eagle Clarke's introductory obser- 

 vations and his apposite criticisms on the determinations of 

 some of the species deserve to be consulted. What is the 

 "lUackbird" that appeared in Jan Mayen at Christmas? 



