506 Recently publislied Or aithologicul Works. [Ibis, 



pleased with those that liave been provided from the 

 author's various sketch-books, representing the work of 

 some thirty years. They are nearly all taken from life, and 

 therefore show the pose and tricks of hal)it of the species 

 in a way that can only be attained by patient watching. 

 Twenty-four of the plates are coloured, the remainder in 

 collotype, and the latter include one or two of the haunts 

 of the wilder species. 



Wood on the Bird's Eye. 



[The Fuudus oculi of Birds, especially as viewed by the Ophthalmo- 

 scope : a Study in Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. By Casey 

 Albert Wood. Pp. 1-180 : 145 text-figs. ; 61 coloured paintings. 

 Chicago (Lakeside Press), 1917. 4to.] 



The subject of the comparative structure of the eye in 

 Birds is one which has been but little studied, and we much 

 regret that this beautiful work has escaped our attention 

 for so long. Colonel Casey Wood is an ophthalmic surgeon, 

 and one of the leaders of his profession in the United States. 

 He is also a lover of birds and an ornithologist, and he has 

 devoted his leisure to the study of the bird's eye by means 

 of the ophthalmoscope, an instrument by which the varying 

 appearance of the back of the eyeball can be examined. 

 With the help of Mr. Arthur W. Head, a well-known 

 London artist, he has obtained a series of paintings showing 

 the appearance of fundus or back portion of the eye in 

 fifty-eight species of birds, and three reptiles and batrachians, 

 and the reproductions of these paintings form perhaps the 

 most attractive feature of the volume. 



The text deals with the general structure of the bird's eye 

 and the methods of examination and study used, Avhile in 

 Chapter ix. the appearance of the fundus oculi in the various 

 Orders of birds is reviewed. 



Colonel Wood believes that the jjecten, that curious 

 finger-like growth of blood-vessels projecting from the spot 

 wdiere the optic nerve enters the eye into the vitreous 

 humor, is nothing but a carrier of pabulum to the eye and 

 has no nervous or sensory function. This organ, which is 

 peculiar to the avian eye, has an infinite variation of form 



