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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



Atlante Ornitologico. Uccelli Europei, con Notizie d'Inclole 

 Generate e Particolare. Del Dr. E. Arrigoni degli Oddi. 

 Milano : Ulrico Hoepli. 



This massive and beautiful volume is an addition to the 

 series known as ' Atlanti Diversi per la Gioventu Studiosa,' editi 

 da Ulrico Hoepli. It is written by an ornithologist who is not 

 a stranger to these pages, and, published in a moderately cheap 

 form, with a wealth of illustration, supplies a good handbook for 

 the study of continental ornithology. The first section to p. 165 

 constitutes a general introduction to the subject, and refers to 

 general structure, mimicry, dimorphism, hybridity, geographical 

 distribution, migration, and classification, among other subjects; 

 while an exhaustive bibliography is also appended. Five hundred 

 and sixty-five species are descriptively enumerated, fifty coloured 

 plates are given, and many blocks illustrate the text. The three 

 concluding plates are devoted to eggs ; the other plates each con- 

 tains a number of birds, arranged in a somewhat ancient style, and 

 not quite approaching the record form in either chromo -lithography 

 or coloured photography of to-day, but still of a useful nature 

 for recognition : iconographic more than absolutely artistic. 



The author, however, has brought his letterpress thoroughly 

 up to date. A knowledge of the Italian language, so fnr as 

 descriptive phraseology is concerned, is not a difficult acquisition, 

 even for those to whom Dante and Tasso in the original are 

 sealed prophets. We English, as a rule, are perhaps the worst 

 linguists in the world, and are meek before our own hairdressers 

 and restaurant waiters, who are probably, in a colloquial sense, 

 the best. We may find some solace in the reflection that the 

 men who really know their own language are incomparably fewer 

 than those who have a facile smattering of other tongues, and 

 that to all inheritors of Babel the key to scientific diction is not 

 a too difficult quest. There is sometimes a Sir R. Burton — but 



