Recently published Ornithological Works. 173 



not be confined to a mere list of names without localities. 

 Nor is it necessary to have two rival Lists of the birds of 

 the same country based on different authorities. 



After finishing his four volumes of " Birds " in the 

 ' Fauna of South Africa/ Mr. W. L. Sclater prepared a 

 Check-list of the species, including additions made during 

 the progress of the work, and published it in the ' Annals 

 of the South African Museum.' It enumerated about 

 1848 species as then ascertained to belong to the South 

 African Avifauna, and naturally followed, as closely as 

 possible, the order and arrangement used in the four 

 volumes of the ^ Fauna,' The authors of the present work 

 now give us a new "Check-list" with exactly the same 

 title, and publish it as a "Supplement" to the 'Annals 

 of the Tiansvaal Museum.' Had they followed the 

 classification and arrangement of the previous Check-list, 

 making only the necessary additions and corrections, we 

 should not have found fault with them. But, so far from 

 doing this, they have " gone to Berlin " and taken their 

 arrangement and nomenclature from Dr. Reichenow's 

 ' Vogel Afrikas.' This is an excellent work, no doubt, 

 but it is founded on entirely different principles from 

 Mr. Sclater's book, and begins at the bottom of the Class 

 of Birds instead of commencing with the highest. Thus 

 the ornithologist in South Africa will l>e confronted with 

 two rival systems, and, in many cases, will be puzzled how 

 to choose between them. 



The Pretorian Check-list contains the names of 920 

 species, and gives also the names in Dutch and English, 

 t(-gether with references to the works of W. L. Sclater 

 and Reichenow. At the end is placed a series of notes 

 containing recent information on about 100 species. 



16. Lntinbenj on Birds from Transbaicalia and Mongolia. 



[Notes oil Birds collected by Mr. Otto Bamberg m Southern Trans- 

 baikalia and Nortiiern Mongolia. By p]inar Liinnberg. Arkiv f. Zool. 

 Band V. No. 9 (1909).] 



Dr. Liinnberg describes the collection of birds made by 

 Mr. Otto Bauibei'g, of Weimar, during an expedition to 



