102 Recent Ornithological Publications. 



containing a portion of the Picidce in the Oberamtmann Heine^s 

 rich collection, we have to declare our entire acquiescence in the 

 remarks made by our predecessor (Ibis, 1864, p. 401) on the 

 preceding Part. The care with which the catalogue is elaborated 

 deserves all the praise that can be accorded to it ; but we cannot 

 but regai'd the very numerous new generic terms brought into 

 use as mischievous in the highest degree. Could the learned 

 authors be induced to restrain their "furor genericus " (as Dr. 

 Hartlaub happily calls it), this work would be all we should wish 

 to see it. The Picidce we have here, are divided into forty -eight 

 genera, of which no less than thirty are indicated by names unknown 

 before. M. Malherbe, as some of our readers will recollect (Ibis, 

 1859, p. 458), was at the pains, not so very long ago, of renaming a 

 large number of the sections — we must refuse to them the term 

 genera — into which the Woodpeckers are separated ; so that we 

 cannot help thinking there has been altogether a great waste of 

 the name-inventing faculty upon this group. Granting the prin- 

 ciple on which HH. Cabanis and F. Heine act, the names are 

 generally irreproachable in their composition ; we must, however, 

 say that some have rather an awkward sound — Cactocraugus, 

 Ipopatis, and Nannopipo, for example. The Picida included in 

 this, fasciculus are divided into the subfamilies lungincp, Picum- 

 nince, Dendrocopiruje, Chrysoptilina;, Chrysocolaptina, and Hemi- 

 cercina. The authors consider the type of the Linnean genus 

 Picus to be P. vitidis. It is confessedly a difficult point in most 

 cases to settle which species is to be taken as the type of a 

 Linnean genus, and here we should be sorry to pronounce 

 authoritatively; but in this case we should, with Mr. George 

 Gray, be rather inclined to retain P. martius for that post. 



3. Dutch. 

 We have had the pleasure of receiving the Fifth part of Pro- 

 fessor Schlegel's useful catalogue of the contents of the Leyden 

 Museum *, comprising the groups Sterna, Cuculi, Psittaci, and 



Heine. Theil IV, Klettervogel. Heft 2 : Spechte. Halberstadt, 1863. 

 (London, Williams and Norgate.) 



* Museum d'Histoire Naturelle des Pays-Bas. 5me Livraison. Levde, 

 1864. London (Williams and Norgate). 



