952 Recenth/ published Ornithological Works. [Ibis, 



Thrushes, and Warblers are all placed together in one 

 family — Muscicapidae ; the Hedge-Span ows and the Dippers 

 and Wrens being kept apart. There can be no douljt 

 that Flycatchers, Thrushes, and Warblers are difficult to 

 distinguish, but the excellent character of the juvenile 

 plumage, first suggested by Blaiiford, is undoubtedly a valu- 

 able and fundamental one and should, in our opinion, be 

 made use of. 



One other point we should like briefly to refer to. This 

 is in regard to the generic name of the AVaxwings. 

 The name used in the present work is the less familiar 

 Bomby cilia, also adopted in the A. O. U. Check-list. If Dr. 

 Hartert or any of our readers who are interested in the 

 matter will refer to the note in the B. O. U. list of British 

 Birds (p. 362), it would appear that there is ample grounds 

 for retaining the use of the more familiar Ampelis without 

 having to resort to the process of "elimination for type- 

 fixing of generic names ^^ as suggested in a note on p. 278 

 of the present volume. 



The Auk. 



[The Auk. Vol. xxxvi. for 1919, 4 no.s. Cambridge, Mass.] 



' The Auk ' for last year contains 668 pages .as com- 

 pared with 826 in ' The Ibis ' for the corresponding year. 

 The larger size and somewhat smaller type of 'The Auk' 

 make up for this, and it probably contains quite as much 

 reading matter as our own Journal. With the limited space 

 available it is impossible even to mention the titles of 

 all the pajjers, and it will be necessary to restrict our 

 observations to those of more general interest. 



Mr. A. Wetmore has made an interesting discovery of the 

 existence on the palate of the Icterida3 of a median sharp- 

 edged ridge, and has observed one of the Grackles 

 (^Quiscalus) making use of this for shelling acorns. In the 

 case of one of the Mexican Orioles {Icterus gularis) the 

 palate is provided with a knob-like process not found in 

 other members of the genus, and he proposes to draw 

 attention to this peculiarity by separating this bird under 



