Riccnf Literature.. 



413 



agreeing with them, however, iVequentlv, hut often differing from them, 

 with the result of admitting some of our weakest claimants to recognition, 

 while some of those best entitled to such treatment are reduced to pure 

 synonyms ! In not a few instances, however, he has exercised his conser- 

 vatism with excellent discrimination. As in former volumes, binomials 

 are applied alike to species and subspecies, the latter being distinguished 

 by the prefix " Subsp." and a Greek letter. This is the case when the 

 latter are recognized only provisionally, even as " races," and affirmed to 

 be merely "connecting-links." 



Here and there are to be noticed some singular rulings involving the prin- 

 ciple of priority, as for example, at p. 175, where Fringilla maderensis 

 is described as a new species, to be followed on the next pages by " sub- 

 species," described thirty to sixty years earlier, of this new "species," 

 namely: "Subsp. a. Fringilla morelleti [Pusch. 1859,"]. ^"^ "Subsp. p. 

 Fringilla canariensis [Vieill. 1817]," all being insular forms of a common 

 stock. We have also Acanthis exilipes {Cou&s, i86i),witha subspecies 

 of it, hornnemannii (Holboell, 1834), described nearly thirty years earlier I 



The volume, however, like its long series of predecessors, is too valu- 

 able a hand-book, and in general too excellently done, to render criti- 

 cism a gracious task. — ^J. A. A. 



Shufeldt on the Osteology of the Icteridae and Corvidae. — In a memoir 

 of some 40 pages, illustrated with two beautiful plates. Dr. Shufeldt 

 describes in detail the skeleton of our Western Meadowlark {Siuruella 

 magna neglecta) and compares its osteology with that of other forms of 

 the Icteridae and Corvidae.* Selecting the genus Sturnella as a standard, 

 he extends his comparison to not only various other forms of the Icteridiv; 

 but to the leading types of the Corvidie, as represented in North America. 

 The "most useful and essential characters" of some half-dozen species in 

 each family, and also of the Fringilline genus Calatnospiza, are tabulated, 

 and a series of 'conclusions' are given based on the data thus provided. 

 He expressly states that these conclusions are based wholly on osteological 

 characters, but is careful to record his conviction that the "true affinity of 

 forms can only be arrived at through a correct appreciation of the entire 

 structure after proper comparisons have been made." He considers that 

 Xanthocephalus is the nearest ally of Sturnella, and Icterus spurius the 

 most remote, among strictly Icterine birds, while outside of the family 

 Sturnella "finds its nearest relation probably in Cvanocephalus cvano- 

 cephalus.'" Icterus finds, as would be expected, "its nearest allies in the 

 genus Agelaius." ^'Molothrus" he says, "is a genus of Finches, and as 

 such should be placed in the family Fringillidce, where it more properly 

 belongs," and where he has "no doubt .... Dolichonyx also belongs .... 



*On the Skeleton in the Genus Sturnella, with Osteological Notes upon other North 

 American Icteridce, and the Corvidce. By R. W. Shufeldt, M. D., C. M. Z. S., M. A 

 O. U., Memb. Am. Soc. Naturalists, etc. Journ. Anat. & Phys., Vol. XXII, pp. 309- 

 350, pll. xiv, XV. 



