Recent Ornithological Publications. 103 



haliceetus to be placed on the outside of the foot (c/. R. Z. 1867, 

 pi. 6), or whether this is a special case of the '^formes indeciscs 

 et vagues," mentioued by our reviewer ; but it will be better to 

 cease these amenities and to notice, as we can with satisfaction, 

 the chief ornithological contents of the ' Revue ' for the last 

 two years. 



In the volume for 1865, besides a series of learned papers on 

 the indications furnished by geology in explanation of the dif- 

 ferences presented by existing faunas, in the course of which 

 many ornithological facts are cited. Dr. Pucheran (p. 15) con- 

 tributes a note on the Muscicapa tricolor of Vieillot, identifying 

 it with the Rhipidura motacilloides of Vigors and Horsfield (Tr. 

 Linn. Soc. vol. xv. p. 248), instead of with the Muscipeta mela- 

 leuca of Quoy and Gaimard (Voy. Astrol. p. 180), as he had 

 formerly (Arch. Mus. vol. vii. p. 357) done. The " Causeries 

 Ornithologiques " of M. Jules Vian are agreeable enough, our 

 old friend Cuculus canorus coming in for a large share of them ; 

 and this portion we would recommend especially to the notice of 

 Messrs. Dawson Rowley and A. C. Smith. The theory of late 

 chiefly identified by the name of Dr. Baldamus, or something 

 approaching it, seems to be at least a hundred years old, and is 

 said to be met with in Salerne's ' Ornithologie,' a work we may 

 say we have never seen, published in 1767. A curious associa- 

 ciation of the nests of two birds of very diflferent habits, Turdus 

 viscivorus and Frinyilla coslebs, is the subject of another of these 

 "yarns" (pp. 131-133); and M. Vian attributes the practice, 

 which he says is constantl}'' to be observed in France, to a desire 

 for mutual protection against the attacks of Magpies. Prof. 

 Bianconi, of whose former studies on the tarso-metatarsus of 

 birds mention has been made in 'The Ibis' (1864, p. 399), fur- 

 nishes an abstract of his later investigations (pp. 47-49), which 

 result in placing, according to him, yEptjornis among the Vultures, 

 a position, as it seems to us, untenable. M. Marchand continues 

 his list of the birds of the Department of the Eure and Loir, as 

 well as the series of figures of nestlings, as has been already 

 hinted, andM. Olph Galliard his translation of Prof. Sundevall's 

 masterly criticisms of Levaillant's ' Oiseaux d'Afrique,' which are 

 known to most of our readers [cf. Ibis, 1859, p. 324). There is 



