Recently published Ornithological Works. 471 



As instances he quotes the three East Indian Cuckoos, 

 Dryococcyx harringtoni from the Philippines, Rhinococcyx 

 curvirnstris from Java, and Urococcyx erythrognathus from 

 Sumatra. These tliree birds so closely resemble one 

 another in colour that it is with difficulty that they can 

 be distinguished, but as the position and character of the 

 nasal opening is strikingly different in all three birds 

 they are placed by systematists in three distinct genera. 

 Other instances of where colour-characters are obviously 

 of more importance phylogenetically than so-called struc- 

 tural characters are instanced among the Meropidte and 

 Alcedinidse. 



Swann on Bird-Names. 



[A Dictionary of English and Folk-names of British Birds, with their 

 History, Meaning, and first usage: and the Folk-lore, Weather-lore, 

 Legends, etc., relating to the more familiar species. By II. Kirke Swann. 

 Pp. xii -I- 266. London (Witherby), 1913. 8vo. Price 10s. net.] 



This useful work contains a list of nearly 5000 names 

 which have been applied to British birds. Among them are 

 the vernacular names o£ the older works beginning with 

 Turuer^s ^ Avium Prsecipnarum Historia/ published in 154-4, 

 and reprinted and edited by Mr. A. H. Evans in 1903. 

 Local and provincial names, including Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, 

 and Irish, are included, and all are referred to the accepted 

 English name of the species as used in Messrs. Hartert, 

 Jourdain, Ticehurst, and Witherby ^s * Hand-list,^ and are 

 printed in large capitals. 



Thes derivation of the principal names cited are discussed 

 at considerable length, and the views of ornithologists like 

 Newton, Yarrell, and Harvie-Brown are quoted and criticised 

 as well as those of Skeat, Littre, and of the New English 

 Dictionary still in the course of publication at Oxford and 

 edited by Sir James Murray. 



The only work which approaches the present one in its 

 scope is Swainson's ' Folk-lore and Provincial Names of 

 Birds,' published in 1886, but this did not contain the book- 

 names nor was it arranged in dictionary form. 



8ER. X. VOL, I, 2 k 



