Feb. 27, 1890] 



NATURE 



189 



absolute necessity. Mr. Gates has already won his spurs 

 in the field of Indian ornithology ; for his " Hand-book of 

 the Birds of Burma," publibhed in 1883, has always 

 been looked upon as a standard work ; and by comi .g to 

 Enijiand, at great personal sacrifice, to write the bird 

 volumes of the " Fauna of British India," he has deserved 

 the gratitude of all zoologists. Those of us who are 

 acquainted with the " Hand-book" before mentioned, will 

 not be surprised to find that in the present volumes Mr. 

 Gates has done his work in a thoroughly conscientious 

 manner. Without commencing, as Jerdon did, with a 

 general outline of ornithology, for which space was not 

 available, Mr. Gates has contrived to give a condensed 

 introduction, which will give the student some small idea 

 of classification of passerine birds, with which this 

 volume deals. We could have wished that the author 

 had followed a more natural arrangement of passerine 

 families, as his scheme of arrangement results in some 

 very incongruous affinities, but these will doubtless be 

 further explained when the author gives a detailed 

 arrangement of the orders and families of birds in his 

 third volume. As the furlough which has been granted 

 to Mr. Gates is quite insufficient for him to finish the 

 work in anything like a reasonable period, we are glad to 

 learn that a representation has been made to the 

 Government of India, by som* of our leading men of 

 science, for a further extension of leave, to enable the 

 author to finish the work, which he has begun so 

 creditably. It would be a thousand pities to see the com- 

 pletion of this book intrusted to less capable hands, of 

 which there seems to be some fear expressed in Mr. 

 Blanford's preface. 



Since Mr. Seebohm, in the fifth volume of the " Cata- 

 logue of Birds in the British Museum," laid stress on the 

 importance of the plumage of the young as distinguish- 

 ing characters between the Thrushes and the Warblers, 

 this character has been thoughtfully considered by many 

 ornithologists ; but Mr. Gates has been the first to apply 

 it in any large measure to the bulk of the passerine birds, 

 and it enables him to divide them into five sections, 

 characterized by the plumage in the nestling. This 

 arrangement brings about so ne rather startling results, 

 for the Titmice {Paridce) become merged in the family 

 Corvid(c, and the Dongns {Dicrurida) range in close 

 proximity to the Nuthaches {Sitiidce) and the Creepers 

 {Ccrthiidce). This character of the plumage of the nest- 

 lings, like all single characters, carries the author too far, 

 and it is becoming more and more plain every day that 

 the natural classification of birds in the future will be 

 founded on a combination of characters, not on any single 

 one alone. Mr. Gates himself, in his arrangement of the 

 Crateropodidce, shows how this can be done. 



It is impossible to praise too highly the method in 

 which the present book has been worked out, though it 

 is to be regretted that four volumes were not allowed for 

 the birds, instead of three, for the constriction of the 

 work has compelled the author to treat of 563 species 

 in 544 pages, which is an allowance of less than a page 

 to each species, including the space necessary for family 

 characters and " keys " to genera and species. We notice 

 that the author has been driven to create a good many 

 new genera, but we are not disposed to quarrel with him 

 on this account, though we notice that, like ourselves, 



in writing the " Catalogue of Birds," he has found it hard 

 to be consistent, and he certainly varies somewhat in his 

 estimate of characters in different families. Thus he 

 divides the Bulbuls into a number of slenderly defined 

 genera, yet he places the Rook and the Jackdaw in the 

 same genus, Corvns, as the Raven. What was sauce for 

 a Bulbul ought to have been sauce for a Rook ! It is very 

 interesting to notice the immense strides which our know- 

 ledge of Indian ornithology has made in the last twenty 

 years. This is mostly due to the energy of Mr. Allan Hume, 

 whose marvellous collection of Griental birds was given 

 by him to the British Museum in 1885. Since that date 

 the registration and arrangement of the Hume Collection,- 

 has occupied the bulk of our own time and that of our 

 colleagues in the Bird Room, so that the whole of the 

 Indian Passeres have been placed conveniently at Mr. 

 Gates's disposal for the present work. It may, indeed, 

 be said that Mr. Hume sowed, the officers of the British 

 Museum watered, and Mr. Gates came over from India 

 in time to gather the increase. It must be a great 

 pleasure to Mr. Hume, and to Major Wardlaw Ramsay, 

 who gave the Tweeddale Collection and Library to the 

 Museum two years ago, to see that already their magni- 

 ficent donations have been turned to such good account. 



The number of new species described by Mr. Gates is, 

 as might be expected, small ; but ornithology has now 

 reached a stage when the description of new species will 

 be surpassed in interest by the study of greater facts, of 

 which the geographical distribution of birds is likely to 

 prove the most absorbing. For this purpose the splendid 

 Collection of skins amassed by Mr. Hume will be invalu- 

 able, for in most instances the specimens in the Hume 

 collection trace out definitely the range of each species, 

 and Mr. Gates has shown great talent in condensing into 

 his limited space the large amount of material which was 

 at his command. It is, in fact, impossible to speak too 

 highly of the way in which he has performed his task. 



The volume before us is profusely illustrated with 

 woodcuts, which will undoubtedly be of great service to 

 the student in enabling him to identify the species of 

 birds which are to be met with in India. These wood- 

 cuts are, almost without exception, well executed, and are 

 the best specimens of ornithological work which we have 

 seen from the pencil of Mr. Peter Smit. We are not 

 quite able to grasp the plan on which the names of Indian 

 localities have been altered in the present book to bring 

 them into a recognized system of correct orthography, 

 but we suppose that there is some sound reason for the 

 changes. If, however, our old friend "Mooleyit" is to 

 become " Muleyit," and " Malewoon " to become " Mala- 

 wun," why does not " Masuri " take the piace of 

 " Mussoorie".'' Surely it is pedantic to alter the specific 

 name of " nipalensis " to " nepalensis," because it suits 

 modern notions to speak of " Nepal " instead of " Nipal."' 

 As this mode of orthography does not appear in any of 

 Mr. Gates's previous writings, we suppose that the editor 

 is responsible for the changes in the spelling of the names 

 of places. We would gladly adopt a complete method of 

 spelling the names of Indian localities, but that adopted 

 in the present work seems neither one thing or the 

 other. 



It was a happy idea of Mr. Gates's to issue the new 

 edition of Mr. Hume's " Nests and Eggs of Indian 



