Recently published Ornithological Works. 203 



of information will be found in the paper now before us. 

 It was read at the Internaional Ornithological Congress at 

 Berlin in 1910, but has been only recently published. After 

 recapitulating and criticizing the various views on this 

 subject^ of Gadow, Andrews, Fiirbringer, and other authors, 

 T>\\ Rothschild gives a complete list of all the known forms, 

 living and extinct, of the true '• Ratitse Palseognathse." 

 U|)wards of 120 species are mentioned, and the exact 

 locality, M'heu known, is stated in each case. They are 

 divided into seven famihes : Struthioues, Rheje, Casuarii, 

 Apteryges, Dinornithes, ^Epyornithes, and Ereniopezi. An 

 attempt is then made at the difficult task of a " a key to the 

 species.^' This is succeeded by a discussion of the distribu- 

 tion of the Ratitae. 



Finally the following conclusions are drawn : — 



1. That all the known Ratitaj Palaeognathse are descended 

 from ancestral forms capable of flight. 



2. That the various groups are descended from several 

 ancestral forms. 



3. That these birds did not begin to develop till after the 

 commencement of the Pleistocene Epoch. 



Annexed to Mr. Rothschild^s paper is a note by Dr. 

 Andrews on some fragments of the fossil egg-shell of a large 

 Struthious Bird from Southern Algeria, with remarks 

 on some pieces of the egg-shell of an Ostrich from Northern 

 India. On the Algerian egg-shell Dr. Andrews bases his 

 Psammornis rutJiscluldi, while the North Indian fragments 

 are })rouounced to be most like egg-shells of Struthio 

 molybdophanes of Somaliland, but thicker than any Ostrich 

 ej(g-shell hitherto recorded. 



"OS 



22. Rothschild and Hartert on new Birds from New 

 Guinea. 



[Preliminary Descriptions of some new Birds from Central New 

 Guinea. Bj the Hon. Walter Rothschild, Ph.D., and Dr. E. Hartert. 

 Nov. Zool. xviii. p. 159.] 



Mr. Albert ]\Ieek has been able to accompany a Dutch 

 Exploring Expedition up the Eilandeu River in New Guinea 



