5o6 



NATURE 



{April 3, 1879 



Ibis and in the Indian journal Stray Feathers, will 

 have prepared his readers for an excellent account of the 

 habits of the birds of that island. The avifauna of Ceylon 

 did not attract the attention of the naturalist to any great 

 extent after the year 1854, when Mr. E. L. Layard pub- 

 lished his valuable notes in the Annals of Natural History, 

 and brought to light a number of new and interesting 

 forms, until in 1872 Mr. E. W. H. Holdsworth presented 

 to the Zoological Society an excellent memoir, embodying 

 not only all that was known on the subject, but adding 

 greatly to our knowledge from the results of his five years' 

 residence in the island. Ornithologists, however, could 

 hardly have expected from the published accounts that so 

 much would remain for Capt. Legge to do in a field often 

 supposed to be tolerably well exhausted by the labours of 

 the two naturalists mentioned above, and it is impossible 

 to speak in too high terms of the volume which our author 

 has now presented to the public, and which, in our opinion, 

 is one of the best ornithological works ever yet produced. 

 Not only does Capt. Legge excel in his descriptions of 

 the habits of the Ceylonese birds, which he has himself 

 studied in the jungle during his seven years residence in 

 Ceylon, devoting his whole leisure time to the pursuit of 

 ornithology, but on the return of his regiment to England 

 he at once sets to work to complete the scientific history 

 of the birds with whose life-history he is already so well 

 acquainted. The result of the patient labour which he has 

 devoted to both branches of the subject is apparent on 

 every page, and from the peculiar relations of the avi- 

 fauna of Ceylon this task has been by no means an easy 

 one. Possessing only a limited number of peculiar forms, 

 the birds of Ceylon indicate affinities on the one hand 

 to those of Southern India, and on the other to those of 

 the Malayan Peninsula, while in the higher ranges a de- 

 cided Himalayan element crops up. Sometimes the 

 differences between the forms of birds inhabiting these 

 regions and Ceylon are found to be of specific import- 

 ance, but more often the variation does not extend beyond 

 the recognition of a climatic race or sub-species. Not 

 one of these difficult questions is shirked by the author, 

 who diligently compares the subject of every article with 

 the allied forms of surrounding countries, so that many 

 of his descriptions amount to monographic revisions of 

 genera and species of the highest importance to the 

 student of Indian ornithology. 



Commenced originally with the idea of providing a 

 handbook to the birds of Ceylon, for the use of the 

 numerous planters and civil servants interested in the 

 study of birds (and Capt. Legge's work shows that these are 

 already a goodly company), this production not only fulfils 

 the author's original purpose, but forms a most valuable 

 addition to the series of similar works, such as Buller's 

 "Birds of New Zealand," Dresser's "Birds of Europe," 

 &c. We regret to see that the great length of the articles, 

 which the conscientious researches of the author have 

 obliged him to write, has already forced him to give to 

 the one part now published no less than 340 pages, which 

 was as much as the entire book was expected to occupy. 

 Involving as this does a serious pecuniary loss, we feel 

 bound to call attention to the fact, as evidencing the self- 

 sacrificing enthusiasm with which Capt. Legge regards 

 his subject, and when we state that the coloured plates, 

 which give illustrations of every peculiar Ceylonese species, 

 are in Mr. Keuleman's very best style, we can add nothing 

 more to recommend the work to the attention of the 

 scientific public. R. Bowdler Sharpe 



Sur la Structure et les Modes de Fecondation des Fleurs. 



Par L. Errera et G. Gevaert. 1° partie. (Bruxelles, 



Mayolez, 1879.) 

 If the value of a work is to be judged by the extent of the 

 original research to which it has given birth, then surely 

 few have been published possessing so high a value as 

 those of Mr. Darwin. The little volume before us is a 



direct outcome of attention directed by Darwin's writings 

 to the subject of the fertilisation of flowers. Without 

 pretending to any novel discovery, it gives a clear and 

 succinct rhume of our present state of knowledge of the 

 subject, the writers themselves confirming Darwin's ob- 

 servations on some important points. Appended is an 

 interesting morphological study and comparison of two 

 species of Pentstcvion, P. hartwegi and gentianoides, of 

 which the authors consider the latter to be a derivative 

 from the former. They regard the natural order 

 Scrophulariaceae as being the offspring of certain forms 

 belonging to the Solanaceae. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions exttressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, or 

 to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. 77u pressure on his space is so great that it 

 is impossible otherwise to ensure the appearattce even of com- 

 tnunications containing interesting and novel facts,} 



Deltaic Growth 



There can be no doubt that there are conditions very favour- 

 able to the rapid deposition of sediment brought down by the 

 Irrawaddy, Sittang, and Salween rivers, in the Gulf of Marta- 

 ban — as a reference to the map will show — but the amount can 

 hardly be as great as that afforded by the following results, 

 which, I anticipate, may be of some interest to your readers. 



While proceeding northwards towards Rangoon from Penang, 

 in the s.s, Fitzpatrick, Commander Humphries, I observed, 

 shortly after we entered, discoloured or muddy water in the open 

 sea, lat. 15° 15' N. ; the soundings taken were only from fifteen 

 to bixteen fathoms in places where the Admiralty charts showed 

 from thirty-two to thirty-f oar fathoms, }\ist double, or a difference 

 of 100 feet. 



The chart was based on surveys originally made by Captains 

 Ross and Crawford, probably thirty years back, and lately issued 

 in an amended form, supposed to have been ' ' corrected to 

 date." Tat. Doyle 



Jordan's Hotel, Rangoon, February 27 



Atmospheric Pressure 



Dans le No. de la Nature de 6 courant, p. 420, apropos 

 d'une appreciation des observations meteorologiques de I Hydro- 

 graphic Office a Pola, on lit le suivant : — 



"The amount of this third maximum is very small, and the 

 evidence yet adduced is not sufficient to determine whether it is 

 a real increase of atmospheric pressure or merely an apparent 

 increase due to undetected instrumental errors." 



Nous avons remarque ce maximum secondairedu barometre dans 

 une recherche sur les variations diurnes de la pression k Lisbonne, 

 avant de savoir qui M. Ricatscheflf avait fait une memoire sur ce 

 sujet, et nous pouvons affirmer que le dit maximum n'est dii h. 

 des erreurs de I'instrument : — 



La recherche que nous avons fait a ete dans une serie de 12 

 annees d'observations horaires, deduites du barographe (systeme 

 photographique) et nous avons constate le suivant : 



1. Pas une seule des 12 courbes de la pression atmospherique, 

 correspondantes aux 12 mois de decembre ou aux 12 mois de 

 Janvier, a laisse d'exhiber le dit maximum secondaire entre les 

 13 et 15 lieures. 



2. Les valeurs des erreurs probables des pressions moycnnes 

 dans les heures (13, 14, 15) sont encore inferieures aux erreurs 

 probables des autres heures du jour, 



3. En gronpant les pressions horaires des jours sereins et 

 calmes des mois de Janvier et de decembre, pendant toute la 

 serie de 12 annees, le maximum en question est ressorti plus 

 regulier et beaucoup plus developpe que dans les courbes des 

 pressions moyennes de les meiiies mois. II me semble done 

 demontre I'existence de ce maximu u secondaire, tres difficue a 

 expliquer, et que rendra plus obscure I'explication de la double 

 oscillation diurne du barometre. JOAO Capello 



Observatorio do Infante D. Luiz, Lisbonne, 14 mars 



