18S4.I Notes 11)1(1 News. 305 



The editor, in his preface, states that the 'Zeitschrift' will be devoted 

 especially to Hungarian ornithology, and to an exposition of the ornitho- 

 logical riches of the National Museum at Budapest. The colored illustra- 

 tions, of which there are to be not less than two in each number, will give 

 figures of hitherto unfigured species, even if not recently described. 



— We have received specimen pages of a work now in press entitled 

 'Our Birds in their Haunts,' by the Rev. J. H. Langille. The work —an 

 octavo of about 560 pages — will be published by S. E. Cassino & Co., of 

 Boston, and will contain a popular account of all the species of common 

 occurrence east of the Mississippi River. 



— Two numbers of a monthly 'Bulletin of Massachusetts Natural His- 

 tory,' published by W. A. Stearns, Amherst, Mass., have appeared. It is 

 only to a small extent ornithological, and, judging by the opening numbers, 

 will not take a high stand, weighed from either a literary or scientific 

 standpoint. 



— Mr. S. H. Scudder has placed zoologists under a lasting debt of grat- 

 itude by the publication of his 'Universal Index to Genera in Zoology,' 

 which has just appeared. It is scarcely within the range of possibility 

 that such a work should be foultless, or that its So, 000 names should 

 include all the names that should be found in it. At present it is a list of 

 the names given by Agassiz and Marschall in their 'Nomenclators,' by Mr. 

 Scudder himself in his 'Supplemental List,' and in the 'Zoological 

 Record' down to 1879. I^'"- Stejneger, on a preceding page of this num- 

 ber of 'The Auk,' alludes pointedly to its incompleteness for ornithology. 

 But probably no one is more keenly aware of its imperfections than the 

 author himself, who, in the preface to his 'Supplemental List,' published 

 in 1882, says: "That the list is far from being fully complementary, the 

 compiler has had ample proofs since the completion of the appendix. 

 When, indeed, such common generic names as Homo and Musca have 

 escaped entry until now, he cannot anticipate that he has been much more 

 successful than his predecessors." As the Smithsonian Institution, by 

 whom the work is published, propose hereafter to issue decennial supple- 

 ments to this list, and as the author appeals to zoologists for information 

 concerning names omitted from the 'Universal Index,' that they may be 

 included in the contemplated supplements, we trust that, in the interest of 

 zoology at large, he will meet with such hearty cooperation that the first 

 supplement will go far toward making the 'Index' thoroughly' complete. 

 A collation of several pages of the index to generic names given in Grav's 

 'Hand-list of Birds,' published in 1S71, with the present 'Index' shows that 

 from 25 to 30 per cent, of even the names given by Gray (this does not 

 include orthographical variations of the same name) do not appear in the 

 'Universal Index." 



— We regret to announce that the publication of the 'Qiiarterly Journal 

 of the Boston Zoological Society' has been suspended. 



