Recent Ornithological Publications. 333 



that the examples were procured, which were afterwards pur- 

 chased at Sydney, and so handsomely presented to the Society 

 by Dr. George Bennett. 



XXX. — Recent Ornithological Publications. 

 1. English. 

 In an appendix to the second volume of his friend Captain 

 Spratt's recently published ' Travels and Researches in Crete/ 

 Lieutenant-Colonel Drummond-Hay has reprinted, with a good 

 many alterations, his ' List of the Birds of the Island of Crete,^ 

 which was published some three-aud-twenty years ago in the 

 ' Annals and Magazineof Natural History^ (vol. xii. pp. 423-427). 

 The observations on which this list was founded were made during 

 a residence from the»27th April to 18th June, 1843 — very nearly 

 two months, and that at the best season of the year for ornitho- 

 logical purposes. In each paper the number of species noticed 

 is the same, namely, 105 ; but this result is obtained by the omis- 

 sion from the second edition of the Common Quail (which must 

 surely visit the island) and the splitting of Motacilla flava into 

 M. cinereocapilla and M. melanocephala. Falco subbuteo is now 

 replaced by F. eleonorce, which was " seldom noticed in the 

 middle of the day, but towards evening might be seen in small 

 flocks, in pursuit of a large species of beetle, which they dex- 

 terously strike and hold in the claw, devouring their prey on 

 the wing.^' Col. Drummond-Hay states that this species pro- 

 bably breeds on the island, from the circumstance of its having 

 been seen so late as the 12th of June ; but, according to Dr. 

 Kriiper's experience (Journ. f. Ornith. 1864, pp. 1-23) in the 

 Cyclades, there would yet be plenty of time for it to go elsewhere 

 before August, which, singularly enough, seems to be its usual 

 time of nidification. A few other changes of less importance 

 are made in the identification of the birds noticed. For instance, 

 for Fringilla montium we now have F. linaria, of course not the 

 Linnean species [cf. Ibis, 1865, p. 129, note), but probably 

 our Lesser Redpoll. It is suggested that the Cretan Chaffinch 

 may be Fringilla spodiogena, instead of F. ccelebs, as the last- 



