Notices of New Books. 4755 



mild weather throughout the year. The attachment to locality is, 

 however, very marked in this species : they will be seen not only in a 

 particular spot, but on a particular stone in that spot; they are fond 

 of perching on some prominent point of rock, and from this they 

 sometimes dart out upon any passing gnat, much after the manner of 

 a flycatcher." Dr. Jordan speculates on the question, Why should 

 this bird be a winter visitor, and the common redstart a summer 

 visitor, in South Devon ? but he adduces no evidence as to the direc- 

 tion in which the species is passing when arrested in its passage on 

 the southern coast. A multiplicity of observations, or rather records 

 of observations, respecting Sylvia Tithys seem quite to harmonise 

 with, or at least not to disturb, the theory I have long since submitted 

 to ornithologists, that there is a uniform movement among migrants, 

 southward in the autumn, northward in the spring. Nothing is more 

 probable than that the later individuals should be deterred, by the 

 great breadth of sea, from crossing from the Devon and Cornish coast, 

 especially as Dr. Jordan points out that there is a supply of food there 

 throughout the winter : even as far eastward as Brighton, and all along 

 the intermediate coast, the same facts obtain; but still further east- 

 ward, where the narrowness of the channel offers a facility to this 

 feeble-winged bird for crossing, it is not found during the winter 

 months, although occasionally observed on its southward passage in 

 autumn, and on its northward passage in spring. — E. N. 



The Natural History Review. No. VI., dated April, 1855; price 

 2s. 6d. London : Highley. 



We notice with pleasure that this periodical has now obtained a 

 London publisher, but still must be regarded as purely Irish in 

 character, and as bearing the most direct and indisputable evidence 

 to the zeal and industry of Irish naturalists. It contains ' Reviews,' 

 1 Notices of Serials,' ' Communications made to Irish Societies,' and 

 j Proceedings of Irish Societies,' and is conducted in a spirit of 

 fairness and with a display of critical acumen which are highly 

 praiseworthy. It certainly seems a little remarkable that while the 

 meetings of Irish Societies are reported thus carefully and regularly 

 in extenso, not only in this ' Review,' but also in local newspapers, 

 that in England such reports rarely appear in print : if we except the 

 Entomological Society of London, reported in the ' Zoologist,' what 



