40 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



amongst the species which have been observed to be more 

 plentiful of late years. 



Amongst the rarer birds included in his list, Mr. Aplin seems 

 to set great store by the Alpine Chough, Pyrrhocorax alpinus, a 

 specimen of which was shot in the park at Broughton in April, 

 1881, and a coloured plate of which does duty as a frontispiece. 

 As this species is not migratory, and no other specimen has been 

 noted elsewhere in England, we think too much importance has 

 been attached to the Broughton specimen (see ' Zoologist,' 1881, 

 pp. 422, 471, and 1882, p. 431) ; at the same time it may be 

 said that, if really a wild bird, and not escaped from confine- 

 ment, it is as remarkable a bird as any which has been found in 

 Oxfordshire, unless perhaps the Andalusian Hemipode, which 

 has occurred in but one other English county. 



Index Generum Avium. A List of the Genera and Subgenera of 

 Birds. By F. H. Waterhouse, Librarian to the Zoological 

 Society of London. 8 vo, pp. 240. London: Porter. 1889. 



With such an excellent library at his command as that of the 

 Zoological Society of London, Mr. Waterhouse has had the best 

 possible material for the preparation of such an Index as the 

 present, and right well has he utilised it. The labour must have 

 been considerable, for he has found, and arranged alphabetically, 

 about 7000 names of genera and subgenera which have been 

 employed by various authors since 1766, the date of the 12th 

 edition of Linnaeus's ' Systema Naturae,' the starting-point of 

 modern zoological nomenclature. 



Such an Index was very much heeded, and ornithologists 

 who may consult it will be saved a considerable amount of time 

 and trouble, since they will be spared many a journey to see 

 some old book which they do not possess, and perhaps only 

 desire to consult for the purpose of acquiring the very informa- 

 tion which Mr. Waterhouse has extracted. 



As regards the accuracy of the * Index,' we can only say that 

 we have tested it critically in various places, and have looked for 

 several little-known and now disused genera, all of which we 

 have found correctly entered. This being so, we can cordially 

 recommend it as a most useful addition to the bookshelf of any 

 worker in systematic Ornithology. 



