Recent Ornithotoyical Publications. 477 



portion of it. The account given of some of the species is cer- 

 tainly meagre, though no doubt the autliors have done their best 

 with the materials at their disposal. The distinctness of the 

 Hypsipetes of Reunion is rightly enough recognized, though we 

 should prefer terming it H. atricillu (Cuv.)*, to using the so- 

 called name of Brisson, H. borbonica. There are thus four 

 species of the genus in this subregion : — H. madagascariensis (P. 

 L. S. Miiller) [Turdus ourovanxj, Gmel.), from Madagascar; H. 

 olivacea (Jard.), from Mauritius; H. crassirostris (E. Newton), 

 from the Seychelles; and that above mentioned, from Reunion. 

 The authors, we think, make a great mistake in identifying 

 Turtur rostratus, indigenous to the Seychelles, with T. picturatus, 

 also occurring in those islands, but introduced thither from Mada- 

 gascar its proper home. The diflFerence between the two was, 

 we should have thought, convincingly shown in this Journal last 

 year (Ibis, 1867, pp. 354, 355). Professor Schlegel persists in 

 regarding Ardea elegans as identical with A. garzetta, in spite of 

 Dr. Hartlaub's remonstrances (P, Z. S. 1867, p. 821), while he 

 now admits A. idee as a fourth " conspecies'^ of -^. leucoptera, 

 a compromise he was before unwilling to adopt (P. Z. S. 1866, 

 p. 425) . It will perhaps be remembered that, on his second 

 visit to Madagascar, Mr. Edward Newton recorded (Ibis, 1863, 

 p. 461) that he saw, but could not obtain, a Plotus. The Dutch 

 naturalists were more fortunate, and procured a specimen from 

 a resident there, which, singularly enough, proves to be the 

 Indian P. melanog aster, and not, as might have been expected, 

 the African P. levaillanti, — another most remarkable instance of 

 a connexion between the fauna of Madagascar and that of more 

 eastern resious. 



Heer H, C. Millies has found, pasted into a copy of Clusius's 

 well-known "Exoticorum Libri Decern^' in the library of thelligh 

 School at Utrecht, an original and very interesting representa- 

 tion of the Dodo, inscribed, " Vera effigies huius avis WALGH- 



les decouveites de MM. Fraii9ois P. L. Pollen et D. C. van Dam. Mammi- 

 feres et Oiseau.x. Par II. Schlegel et Fr.\n90is P. L. Pollen. Leyile : 

 1867. Roy. 8vo. (Livraison III.) 



* Cf. Pucheran, Arch. Mus. vii. p. 340. 



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