Recent Ornithological Publications. 533 



as it is, haSj ever since its publication, been as indispensable a 

 vade mecum as Mr. George Gray^s ' List of Genera/ or a ' Murray^ 

 to the Britisli tourist on the continent. We are glad to an- 

 nounce, therefore, that Herr Otto Finsch, formerly Assistant 

 in the Museum at Leyden, and now Curator of that at Bremen^ 

 has supplied this very pressing necessity, by bringing out, in a 

 form which admits of its being bound up with the great labour 

 to which it is a guide, such a desideratum^. Even to those 

 who, like ourselves, have composed or copied from some kind 

 and more fortunate friend a manuscript index, the present work 

 will be of great service ; for not many persons, we apprehend, have 

 taken the trouble, as Mr. Finsch has done, to give a particular 

 reference to all the species of which Bonaparte was the first 

 describer or name-giver ; and this feature alone will be found of 

 considerable utility. 



We have before referred to Professor SchlegeFs Catalogue of the 

 Scolupaces in the Ley den Museum {antea, p. 342). The Seventh 

 part of that laborious and useful workf, which completes the 

 enumeration of the group, besides containing a descriptive list 

 of the Ciconics, Cursores, and Ralli, has now appeared. The 

 series of Scolopaces in the Museum is represented by no less 

 than 1230 skins and 50 osteological specimens of 84 species ! 

 that of Ciconice by 152 specimens of 23 species, and of Cursores 

 by 749 specimens of 98 species ! The resume of the Ralli, 

 among which Professor Schlegel comprehends the Gruida, is 

 still unfinished. It needs not to be said that all these groups 

 are worked out in a most painstaking manner ; and, as may be 

 gathered from the statement of the wealth of the Leyden store- 

 house, the Catalogue, though of course limited in its scope to 

 such species as are therein contained, actually becomes an 

 almost complete descriptive work of the genera and families 

 treated, and one which is the more valuable since it is long 



* Index ad Caroli Luciaui Bonaparte Conspectum Generum Avium. 

 Auctore O. Finsch. Lugduni Batavorum: 1865. (London: Williams 

 and Norgate.) Royal 8vo, pp. 23. 



t Museum d'Histoire Naturelle des Pays-Bas, 7"^ livraison. Leyden: 

 1865. (London : Williams and Norgate.) 



