44 Recent Literature. 



" Of his zoological papers indeed, the ornithological ones must probably, 

 on account of their more novel character, and as aftording entirely new 

 data for the solution of the various problems connected with the classifi- 

 cation of Birds, which he revolutionized, be considered of the greater im- 

 portance. No future worker in that group can neglect the facts or ideas 

 concerning it that we owe to Garrod, and they alone suffice to put his 

 name in the very first rank of those who have ever studied these creatures, 

 and to stamp his work on Birds as truly 'Epochmachende.' " 



Garrod's numerous papers, covering the period of 1871-79, are scattered 

 through various periodicals ; and it is a subject for congratulation that they 

 have been collected in one convenient volume, under careful editorship. 

 At a meeting of the Zoological Club to coijsider the wish of friends to 

 possess some permanent memorial of Garrod, it was decided, with wisdom 

 and good taste which none can impugn, " that the most appropriate and 

 desirable one would be the publication, in a collected form, of all the 

 papers published by Garrod in various scientific journals and periodi- 

 cals, with a portrait and memoir of the author." This decision has been 

 ably carried into eff'ect by Mr. Forbes, whose own contributions to the same 

 subject already prove him to be one on whom the mantle may fittingly 

 descend. We wish there were more work of this kind, even if not of the 

 same highest quality, done by our own countrymen ; but at present no one 

 of them seems especially interested excepting Dr. Shufeldt, whose studies 

 thus far possess much value and give still more promise. Noticing only 

 two or three American names on the list of subscribers, we venture 

 to hint that the work may be procured by others in the usual way. 



We cannot of course go into any examination of these papers in an ed- 

 itorial notice like the present, or even adduce the leading results of the 

 author. It must sufiice to say that among them is an entirely new clas- 

 sification of birds, primarily based upon the ambiens. Among the more 

 important papers we may mention those on the carotid arteries ; on cer- 

 tain muscles of the leg (Garrod's piece de resistance) ; on the anatomy 

 of Pigeons, of Parrots, and of Passerine Birds ; and on the trachea in Gal- 

 lince. All these are of general import, bearing on broad questions of 

 taxonomy, as distinguished from minor papers, however valuable, in which 

 special points are examined. The editor has done well to preserve the 

 original pagination of the text and numeration of the illustrations for 

 facility of citation, and the plates are said to be faithfully reproduced. — E.G. 



Shufeldt's Osteology of the North American Tetraonid.e.*— 

 This osteological memoir is, so far as we know, the most complete of any 

 on American birds of one group. In general the descriptions, with the 

 aid of the numerous plates, can be easily understood. In treating of the 

 skull Dr. Shufeldt adopts the old theory that it is nothing but the modified 

 end of the back bone, and gives a diagramatic figure of the skull of Cen- 

 trocercus much like that given by Owen of the Ostrich. This view will 



* Osteology of the North American Tetraonidas. By Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, U. S. A. 

 Bull. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Surv. Territories, Vol. VI, No. 2, pp. 309-350, pll. V-XIII. 



