NOTICES. OF NEW BOOKS. 463 
Black-tailed Godwit, Ruff and Reeve, Crane, Spoonbill, and 
other birds, which, as breeding species, are most of them no 
longer to be observed in England. We should much have 
preferred to see under the head of Hen Harrier the interesting 
remarks by Mr. Elmhirst (‘ The Field,’ Nov. 27th, 1886) on the 
status of this bird sixty years ago in Lincolnshire, where it used 
to breed regularly and in some numbers, than the less acceptable 
statistics which are given concerning its distribution in the 
palearctic region. 
The question of nomenclature is one upon which it is appa- 
rently hopeless to expect unanimity, and we are at a loss to 
understand why certain names adopted with good reason in the 
4th edition of ‘Yarrell’ should be again altered. For example, 
we have it on Prof. Newton’s authority that the Great Reed 
Warbler is Acrocephalus arwndinaceus (Linneus), and the Sedge 
Warbler Acrocephalus schenobenus (Linneus). Mr. Saunders 
now calls the former Acrocephalus twrdoides (Meyer), and the 
latter A. phragmitis (Bechstein), though without assigning any 
reason for the change. Should not the Linnean names have 
priority ? 
As to those species which have crept into the British list 
with very slender claim to recognition as British, Mr. Saunders 
has, perhaps, done well to discard them,—at all events, 
such species as the Blue Rock Thrush (Monticola cyanus), 
the American Regulus calendula, Vireo olivaceus, Zonotrichia 
albicollis, as well as the American Woodpeckers ; but we are 
somewhat disappointed to note the rejection of the Great Black 
Woodpecker (Picus martius), which, as an Old World species, 
frequently reported to have been observed in England, stands 
upon a very different footing. In this case at least it might 
have been well to republish the figure, if not the description, of a 
bird which, like a “will-o’-the-wisp.” many persons in this 
country believe they have seen, but have never apparently been 
able to capture and produce. 
The new engravings which appear in this ‘ Manual,’ in 
addition to those from ‘ Yarrell,’ are noteworthy, the following 
making their appearance for the first time: the Isabelline, 
Black-throated and Desert Wheatears, the Barred Warbler, Wall 
Creeper, Needle-tailed Swift, Lesser Kestrel, Killdeer and 
Sociable Plovers, and Mediterranean Black-headed Gull; while 
