142 Recently published Ornitiiological Works. 



given the facts that the young birds in many (not all) cases 

 are the first to move in the autumn, it is difficult to suppose 

 that birds are guided, especially at night, by anything but 

 that sense of locality and direction with which we are so 

 familiar in the homing-pigeon, and which human races lose 

 in proportion to their civilization. We have, however, noticed 

 that the young birds in autumn are generally accompanied, 

 or even preceded, by a sprinkling of adults, which have 

 presumably lost their mates or failed to pair. In chap, x., 

 relating to colour-changes in plumage without a moult, we 

 have perhaps the most valuable chapter in the book. 



As to the calculated rates of flight, e. g., such as that of the 

 Bluethroat, 180 miles an hour (p. 66), and the Hooded Crow 

 108 (p. 68), they seem singularly inconclusive. If Herr 

 Gatke had telegraphed to Mr. Cordeaux that a certain Hooded 

 Crow — with a white patch on one wing or other recognizable 

 mark — had left Heligoland at a certain hour on a certain day, 

 and Mr. Cordeaux had been on the Lincolnshire shore to meet 

 that individual Crow three hours later, we should then have 

 something definite to go by. Migrating birds travel, as a rule, 

 not in parties, but in streams. We have seen on the east 

 coast Crows, Jackdaws, Wood-Pigeons, and Larks coming 

 in from the sea in a continuous — though thin — stream, 

 high up, during a whole afternoon. Which part of it would 

 give " time " ? However, criticism of details apart, this is 

 an extremely valuable book, and every patiently accumu- 

 lated storehouse of facts and observations like this helps us 

 materially towards an ultimate knowledge of the migration of 

 birds. The translation has been well executed. In preparing 

 an edition for English readers, however, the sponsor (Pref., p. v) 

 would have done better in trying to bring the information 

 relating to England up to date by footnotes, as has been 

 mostly done with the nomenclature. As it is, we read that 

 the Barred Warbler ^' has not been met with in England up 

 to this date" {i.e. 1890, the date of the German edition), 

 whereas six specimens had then been obtained in Great 

 Britain ; that there are only two known species of Oriolus, 

 viz. 0. galbula and O. kundoo (p. 227), whereas vol. iii. of 



