150 Recently published Ornithological Works. 



Africa to Egypt, some by Mr. Edmund Heller, who accom- 

 panied Mr. Paul J. Rainey's expedition during which the 

 interesting cinema films were obtained which have been 

 shown in London. Others, again, were got during the Childs 

 Frick Expedition which traversed Abyssinia and British East 

 Africa. 



Without seeing the specimens described it is not possible 

 to make criticisms, but we cannot but deplore the description 

 of new subspecies of Cisticola from single specimens without 

 comparison with the material contained in the far more 

 extensive collections of the Old World museums. 



Millais' Diving Ducks. 



[British Diving Ducks. By J. G. Millais, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. ; with 

 forty-two plates (seventeen of which are coloured) by Archibald 

 Thorburn, 0. Murray Dixon, H. Gronvold, and the Author. Vol. ii. 

 Pp. xii.+164. London (Longmans), 1913. 4to.] 



The first volume of this magnificent work was noticed in 

 'The Ibis' last July, and now the appearance of the second 

 volume completes Mr. Millais' account of both the Surface- 

 feeding and Diving Ducks of the British Islands. 



The present volume contains accounts of the three Eider 

 Ducks, the three Scoters, and the four Mergansers recorded 

 from the British Islands, and of these only the Common 

 Elder, the Common Scoter, the Goosander, and the Red- 

 breasted Merganser can be considered as breeding birds; 

 the Velvet Scoter and the Smew are only winter visitors, 

 while the King and Steller's Eider, the Surf Scoter, and 

 the Hooded Merganser are only vagrants in the British 

 Islands. 



Mr. Millais devotes most of the letterpress to the Eider, 

 and describes at great length its plumage-changes, illus- 

 trating these with eight plates of photographs of skins 

 obtained for the most part by himself in the Orkney Islands, 

 where his personal experiences have chiefly been, and his 

 account of the flight, diving-power, food, and breeding habits 

 of this bird make most interesting reading. 



In the paragraphs dealing with the genus Somateria he 



