274 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



of any repute^ who have recently stated that the Redstart is 

 " rare in Scotland ; " and although Mr. Seebohm has, by his 

 characteristic style of writing, given occasion for the regret- 

 table remarks on pp. 57, 58, we can nowhere find that he 

 employs anything like the words placed between quotation 

 marks. Even if such were the case, authors who make the 

 astounding statement that the Goldfinch is " considered by 

 us one of the very rarest and most local of British — not to 

 say Caithness — birds,^' should be lenient to their southern 

 friends. The dwellers on " the Thames " might retort that 

 they were capable of grasping the idea that ^'sometlnng 

 should be done ^'to stop ''the senseless slaughter" of 

 that " interesting species,^^ the Grey-lag Goose, without 

 having the fact rubbed into them, in hardly varied phrase, 

 no less than four times in little more than a page ! And the 

 statement that a " Kosey [sic] Pastor " had been shot and 

 sent for preservation, reads like a shocking allusion to some 

 ruddy-gilled minister. 



A feature of the work is a description of the nesting of the 

 Snow Bunting in Sutherlandshire; while many other inter- 

 esting and novel facts are to be found in the book. If we 

 have called attention to some of its apparent shortcomings, 

 it is because we do not belong to the society of the " log- 

 rollers,'' and are anxious that the * Birds of the Hebrides ' 

 should receive more careful revision than its predecessor. 

 The Index is very full ; unfortunately it contains a good 

 many errors ; and we have looked in vain for a much-needed 

 list of " Errata et Corrigenda." 



45. Linnean Society of New South Wales [Proceedings of). 

 [The Proceedings of tlie Liunean Society of New South Wales. Second 

 Series. Vol. II. Pts. 1-3. 1887. Sydney.] 



The three Parts now before us contain several papers on 

 ornithology. Mr. K. H. Bennett contributes a note on the 

 nesting of a Pachycejihala, supposed to be P. gilberti. Dr. 

 E. P. Ramsay gives a list of 152 species of birds collected at 

 Derby, North Australia, by the late T. H. Bowyer Bower [of. 

 Ibis, 1887, p. 479) ; and he also describes (p. 239) Epimachus 



