Recently published Ornithohfjical Works. 689 



from mythical and classical times onward, and lists of tlic 

 mammals, reptiles, insects, and other groups known to 

 inhabit the island beloved by Aphrodite, 



Bureau on the Red-legged Partridge. 



[L'Age des Perdrix. ii. — La Perdrix rouo;e. Par Dr. Louis Bureau. 

 Pp. 1-143, 54 figs. Nantes (Vie). London (Williams & Norgate). 

 li)1.3. 8vo.] 



Our foreign member, Mr. Louis Bureau, who is the 

 Director of the Natural History Museum at Nantes, has 

 continued his investigation on the moult of the remiges of 

 the Partridges and on the possibility of the exact determi- 

 nation of the age of the young bird by an examination of 

 the condition of the wing. His first contribution, published 

 in 1911, dealt with these conditions in the Grey Partridge 

 {Perdix perdix), the present one with those in the Red- 

 legged {Caccabis rufa). tlis method lor the determi- 

 nation of the age of the bird is based on the observed 

 regularity of the moult of the ten wing primaries of the 

 first plumage. This commences in August, at the average 

 age of 29 days, with the moult of the 10th primary ; the 

 others in regular order up to the 3rd are successively shed, 

 the average age for the last-named being 105 days, while 

 the first and second (the outermost of the wing) are not 

 moulted until the second autumn {i. e. when the bird is 

 about 16 months old). 



It is therefore possible to determine the age of the young 

 Red-leg by finding out which feather of the first plumage has 

 been last moulted and measuring the new feather of the 

 second plumage immediately behind it, and comparing this 

 with the " tableau chrononietriquc " given on p. 74. 



The observations on which these conclusions are founded 

 in the case of both species have been coutiniied over twelve 

 to thirteen years, and arc all based on wild-killed birds the 

 ages of which have been determined by close observation 

 of the time of hatching. It is found that the moult of the 

 Red-leg takes place more slowly than that of the Grey, and 

 the average age for its completion is 105 as against 86 days. 



