5o8 



NATURE 



{_Scpt. 30, 1880 



lojjical sequence." "It was obvious," Mr. Harting re- 

 marks, "that in order to render these notes of practical 

 utility it was necessary to re-cast and re-write the whole." 

 This has been ably executed by the editor, and we have 

 now Mr. Rodd's interesting and original observations, 

 which were continued over a period of nearly forty years, 

 reduced into method and order. These observations, 

 thus re-arranged, occupy the first portion of the present 

 volume, and constitute the most important part of it. 

 Appended to it are more or less contracted reprints of the 

 "yearly reports" which Mr. Rodd was for many years 

 accustomed to contribute to the Journal of the Royal 

 Institution of Cornwall, containing an account of the 

 principal ornithological rarities which had come u'nder his 

 notice in each year, and of the additions thus made to the 

 list of the Cornish avifauna. The editor has also con- 

 siderably increased the value of the volume, especially to 

 Cornish naturalists, by his Introduction. In this is given 

 '■.V. account of the previously existing literature on Cornish 

 ornithology, beginning in 1478 with the Itinerary of 

 William of Worcester and continued down to the present 

 period, and constituting a most useful summary of infor- 

 mation on the subject. Mr. Harting has likewise appended 

 a list of Cornish and pro^•incial names, which will further 

 increase the interest of his work. 



The extreme southern and western situation of Corn- 

 wall renders it one of the first resting-places in spring and 

 one of the last in autumn of those birds which visit us 

 during the summer migration, whilst several well-known 

 Continental species, which are scarcely ever found in the 

 more eastern parts of Great Britain, occur more or less 

 regularly in this remote county. The black redstart, for 

 example, so little known to the majority of English ob- 

 servers, except in its native haunts in Rhineland and 

 Switzerland, is " not uncommon" in Cornwall in the winter 

 months, though usually met with in immature dress. An 

 adult male, however, in very beautiful plumage was 

 captured in December, 1856, in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Penzance. Another much less-known European 

 passerine bird, which has been met with in no other part 

 of the United Kingdom, straggles occasionally into Corn- 

 wall — curiously enough, as it is essentially an eastern 

 species, and mighty be rather expected to occur on the 

 coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk. This is the little red- 

 breasted flycatcher {Muscicapa parva of Bechstein), of 

 which a single example in immature plumage was ob- 

 tained near Falmouth in 1863. Two other specimens of 

 the same species were subsequently captured in the SciUy 

 Islands. Eastern Europe, as wc have already observed^ 

 is the true home of this little bird, which will be well 

 known to such of our readers as have visited Constan- 

 tinople, where it is very common in autumn among the 

 old walls and ruins. 



Another very interesting visitant to the coasts of Devon 

 and Cornwall is the Greater Shearwater {Pi/ffinus major 

 of Faber). This species is also well known on the Scilly 

 Islands, where it goes by the singular name of " Hack- 

 bolt." Its congener, the Manx Shearwater (Pujfiniis 

 r'-uglortiiit), is still more common on the Cornish coast, 

 ■ d breeds in some of the Scilly Islands. But for details 

 <;:i these and other peculiarly western birds we must refer 

 our readers to Mr. Rodd's volume, which no student of 

 the British Ornis should fail to add to his library. 



DEEP-SEA SOUNDING AND DREDGING 



United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, Carlile P. 

 Patterson, Superintendent. A Description and Dis- 

 cussion of the Methods and Appliances used on Board 

 the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Steamer " Blake.'" 

 By Charles D. Sigsbee, Lieut .-Commander, U.S.N. 

 Pp. 192, xli. Plates. (Washington: Government Printing 

 Office, 1880.) 



THE publication of the "Depths of the Sea" and of 

 the "Voyage of the Challenger" by Sir Wyville 

 Thomson has made the public familiar with the work of 

 the English in the exploration of the depths of the ocean. 

 But little is known, even in America, of the important 

 part which the United States Coast Survey has taken in 

 the solution of the problems of the physical geography of 

 the sea. The Coast Survey during the superintendence 

 of Prof. Bache instituted a series of investigations on the 

 physical problems of the deep sea, connected with the 

 Gulf Stream, which have little by little been expanded by 

 his successors, Prof. B. Peirce and the Hon. Carlile P. 

 Patterson, into the most important hydrographic explora- 

 tion yet undertaken by any government. With a wise 

 liberality secondary hydrographic scientific problems, 

 mainly of interest to the biologist and geologist, have 

 been made a part of the work of the Coast Survey. Thus 

 since 1866 the use of the dredge, the trawl, the tangles, 

 and of all the apparatus necessary for a thorough explora- 

 tion of the fauna of the depths of the sea has become as 

 familiar to some of the navy oflicers attached to the 

 Coast Survey as the use of the sextant or of the 

 lead. 



The Coast Survey steamers, Bibb, Hassle;; and the 

 Blake, have acquired a special reputation as deep-sea 

 dredgers. The work of the Bibb and Hassler is known 

 to naturalists mainly from the memoirs of Pourtales. Of 

 the results of the Blake only a part has as yet been 

 published under the direction of Mr. Alexander Agassiz. 



Not only all naturalists but also hydrographers must 

 be interested in the volume just published respecting the 

 equipment of the Blake, a small steamer of only 350 tons 

 burthen, which, under the skilful commands of Lieut.- 

 Commander C. D. Sigsbee and Commander J. R. Bartlett, 

 has not only done more rapid but also far more accurate 

 work than has been accomplished with the old methods 

 and appliances of the large men-of-war usually detailed 

 for similar work by European governments. 



Lieut.-Commander Sigsbee gives in this Report full 

 descriptions of the thermometers, the water-cups, the 

 sahnometers, and of the methods of observing the currents 

 in use on the Blake. The most important part of the 

 Report is that devoted to deep-sea sounding. The 

 sounding-machine, called a modification of Sir William 

 Thomson's machine for sounding with wire, is known on 

 the Blake as the " Sigsbee machine," and Sir WiUiam 

 Thomson would find it difficult to recognise in the sound- 

 ing machine of the Blake the apparatus he first suggested 

 for sounding with piano wire. Throughout the Report the 

 results of Lieut.-Commander Sigsbee's inventive genius 

 are evident, from the water-cup to the shot detacher, the 

 dredges, the trawls, the reels, the accumulator, there is 

 nothing which he has not rendered more useful. His 

 enthusiasm was shared by his officers, and their names 



