‘THE NIDOLOGIST 13 
we should follow it, that is from Grebe to Crow,— 
and not downward, in the reverse order, from 
Crow to Grebe. And be it noticed here that Mr. 
Swann places 7urdus at the head of his List, and 
ends with /yratercu/a, although he has both 
Corvus and Tachybapies in the series. In passing 
these remarks, those birds having the so-called 
“‘struthious characters” are not considered, for 
neither in the avifauna of Great Britain nor of the 
United States have we any such to deal with. On 
pp. vii-viii of his work we find a ‘‘Iust of (senera” 
of British birds, and upon counting these we find 
there to be 206 of them,—the major portion agree- 
ing with the genera represented in this country, 
or are rather common to both countries. At the 
close of his volume we also find in an Appendix 
the ‘‘Provisionally Excluded Species,’’ and quite 
a number of these are North American, while at 
different times not a few of the birds of this coun- 
try have, as stragglers, appeared in Great Britain, 
and these have been duly admitted in the List. 
To American Ornithologists it will be interesting 
to know that amony these have been the White- 
winged Crossbill, the Belted Kingfisher, the 
Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the Black-billed Cuckoo, 
the Swallow-tailed Kite, American Bittern, the 
Glossy Ibis, and a number of otbers. We further 
find this little volume practically brought up to 
date in nearly all matters of importance, with full 
descriptions of the majority of the British birds, 
and in many cases interesting life-histories are 
given. Among its serviceable features is the 
numbering of all the genera (i-cevi) and all the 
species (1-381), aud other convenient and useful 
data, as descriptions of plumage changes, habi- 
tats, dates and authorities for names, and so on. 
With respect to the classification, we find some of 
it to be quite in keeping with the natural system, 
while in other instances it is antiquated and at 
variance with our present-day knowledge of avian 
morphology. Other unfortunate occurrences are 
seen here and there in the adoption cf the scien- 
tific name for this or that genus. For example, 
for our Hairy Woodpecker we find Dendrocopus 
villosus to equal Dryobates villosus of the A. O. 
U. Check- List. That is, Mr Swann claims Devn- 
drocopus, Kock (1816), against Dyryobates, Boie 
(1826), of the A.O.U Check-List. These are 
matters for an International Ornithological Com- 
mittee to settle, appointed by an International 
Ornithological Congress; and be it said here, the 
sooner that that is accomplished, the better for 
Ornithology. 
In his above cited paper, Mr. MONTGOMERY 
divides all the North American species of birds 
into three groups, based on the extent of their 
migrations, to wit,—(1) Species with exceedingly 
protracted migrations, but irregular as to the 
localities traversed; (2) species with more or less 
regular migrations, of 30° lat. or more in extent; 
and (3) species which undertake migrations less 
in extent than 300° lat., or species which do not 
migrate at all. These three Lists the author com- 
pares in a variety of ways with the view of ascer- 
taining to what extent extensive migration in 
birds has as a check upon the production of geo- 
graphical varieties, and after a very interesting 
discussion of the question at issue, formulates the 
following general conclusion: ‘‘It is the rule that 
the amount of geographical variation in species 
with more or less extensive breeding areas, stands 
in inverse ratio to the extentof its periodic migra- 
tions.’’ The paper seems to be worthy of careful 
study and consideration. 
The new American family of Passerine Birds 
created by Mr.R1pGway is the family Procnialida 
or the Swallow-Tanagers. On another paper 
(cited above) Mr. Lucas describes some of the 
very remarkable osteological and pterylographical 
characters of this group. This was originally the 
genus Procnias of Illiger, and some time ago it 
was Mr. Ridgway’s intention to establish a new 
family for it, but it was not published until now. 
These birds range over the Brazilian, Amazonian, 
and North-east Colombian provinces. [See Proc- 
niactine (Tanagridx), Sclater, Cat. Am. Birds, 
p- 54, 1862. (Sub-family.) ] 
The papers by Mr.R1pGway and Mr.RICHMOND 
describing the very valuable collections of birds 
made by Dr. ABBorT are wonderfully interesting, 
and extremely useful to those studying the Orni- 
thology of the Old World. Dr. W. L. Abbott is 
an enthusiastic American naturalist from Phila- 
delphia who has been collecting (1890 and on) in 
various parts of Africa, Central Asia, Madagascar 
and the off-lying islands. He has sent hundreds 
of skins to the United States Natural Museum, 
where they are being described by the above 
quoted authors. Additional memoirs upon this 
subject will follow, some of considerable extent. 
Major Bendire is examining the nests and egegs 
collected by Dr. Abbott. 
In a brief article Mr.OBERHOLSER describes two 
new sub-species of Downy Woodpecker, viz., 
Dryobates ~. meridionalis, the Southern Downy 
Woodpecker, and LD. f. nelsoni, the Northern 
Downy Woodpecker,—the habitat of the first 
being given as ‘‘South Auantic and Gulf States, 
from South Carolina to Texas,’’ and the last as 
‘‘Alaska and Northern British America.”’ 
Written from an economical standpoint, the 
papers by Messrs. Jupp and BEAL are of consider- 
able interest to the American farmers and fruit- 
growers, giving as they do the foods of the birds 
treated. The figures illustrating them are suffi- 
ciently good, it would seem, for one not an Orni- 
thologist, to identify the species by. It is to be 
hoped that such publications as these, and similar 
ones, will at least have the effect of saving some 
of our birds from destruction. Greedy man can 
often be appealed to where the words pass through 
his pocket with far better success than he can 
where the naked matter of sentiment is addressed, 
and the words pass only into his ears. 
Dr. T. S. PALMER has printed an admirable 
letter advocating the establishment of Bird Day, 
setting forth its object and value. His valuable 
remarks, however, have been so thoroughly repro- 
duced in the public prints the country over that 
it would be quite superfluous to re-state them 
here. 
In two veryimportant memoirs PROF. ANDREWS 
of the British Museum describes the skull and 
other bones of the fossil 4ipyornis from Central 
Madagascar,and the skeleton of Apfornis defossor, 
another curious fossil bird of New Zealand. Ona 
future occasion Professor Andrews proposes to 
give a detailed account of the more important 
characters of this skeleton,and this will be looked 
for with interest by those interested in the study 
of extinct birds, many of which have been de- 
scribed lately with great industry by the same 
author. 
