Recent Ornithological Publications. 529 



Professor infers that these two are specifically identical ; but we 

 would venture to suggest the possibility of there being a third 

 and distinct, though intermediate, species. The bird mentioned 

 by Mr. Swinhoe in our last number (pp. 349, 350) was doubt- 

 less similar to that sent to Paris by Father David. As new 

 species, Prof. Milne-Edwards characterizes and figures Carpo- 

 dacus davidianus, much resembling the Fringilla rhodochroa of 

 Vigors (P. Z. S. 1831, p. 23) from the Himalayas, ^ndiAbrornis 

 armandi, which is very similar to Mr. Blyth's Phylloscopus 

 viridanus and P. lugubris (J. A. S., 1843, pp. 967, 968). 



In the ' Bulletin de la Societe Imperiale d'Acclimatation ' 

 for May last, M. Rufz de Lavison, the Director of the beautiful 

 garden in the Bois de Boulogne, has a " Note sur les Faisans 

 acquis et a acquerir," This paper is chiefly made up of a trans- 

 lation of Mr. Sclater's " List of the Species of Phasianida," from 

 the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1863 

 (pp. 113-127), to which is prefixed a short historical summary 

 respecting the three principal introductions of Pheasants to 

 Europe, — (1) Phasianus colchicus, supposed to have been brought 

 by the Argonauts ; (2) P. torquatus, Thaumalea picta, and Gen- 

 ncEus nychthemerus, in the eighteenth century; and (3) the 

 attempts, begun some ten years ago by the Zoological Society, 

 and still in progress, to naturalize various other members of 

 the family. Dr. Bufz de Lavison furnishes some very inter- 

 esting particulars respecting the increasing abundance of the 

 Common Pheasant in France ; but we think he is in error when 

 he states that, according to English ornithologists, it did not 

 exist in this country before the year 1290, and that even in 

 1780 it was not found with us in a wild state; for Yarrell 

 (B. B. ii. p. 366, note^ quotes from Dugdale's ' Monasticou 

 Anglicanum ' an extract by which it appears that in the first 

 year of Henry I., who began to reign in 1100, the Abbot of 

 Amesbury obtained a licence to kill Pheasants ; and that they 

 must have been wild birds is plain, or no licence would have 

 been necessary. It is probable that we owe the introduction of 

 the Pheasant to the Normans, as the French are supposed to be 

 indebted for it to the Romans. 



