REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 165 
Atlantic, and performed a voyage of at least seventeen hundred 
nautical miles on the shortest route, via Newfoundland ; but that 
most of them have actually done so seems proved by the fact that 
they have never been met with in Greenland, Iceland, and the 
Faroe Isles, and many which have thus found their way to England 
or Ireland. . . have never been met with on any part of the Euro- 
pean continent. As might be expected, at least half the Amer- 
ican species found in this country belong to the orders Grallatores 
and Natatores, while of the fourteen species of Insessorial birds, 
none of them, with the exception of Ageleus pheeniceus, has oc- 
curred half a dozen times. This plainly shows that their appear- 
ance on this side of the Atlantic is the merest accident and not 
the result of any continued and successful attempt at migration 
(p. xi).” In taking account of these and other stragglers, Dr. 
Harting makes some further remarks which are timely and judic- 
ious on the credibility of published records. While we speak in 
unqualified terms of the success we believe Dr. Harting has attained 
in all that relates to the principal one of his two aims, just noticed, 
we think it remains to be seen whether he has fixed the nomen- 
clature of even the comparatively few species he treats, more 
stably than his predecessors in the same field. The plain truth is, | 
we are all at sea now in this matter; for the simple reason that 
we may advise, or exhort, or even ‘ legislate,” yet have no means 
of making others mind what we say. A law is no law that binds 
only those who choose to be bound. If it be urged, that in such 
case an appeal to good sense should suffice, it might be replied 
(borrowing a simile from our author), that good sense is a ‘‘ rare 
and accidental visitant ” of average humanity, by no means “ in- 
digenous ” even to ornithologists ; and consequently can seldom be 
invoked with reasonable expectation of any tangible result.—E. C. 
__ Tue Brreps or Frorma.— The first part (4to, pp. 82) of Mr. C. 
J. Maynard’s work, the “ Birds of Florida,” having come to hand, 
Wwe are enabled to judge somewhat better of its scope and general 
character than we were able from the specimen pages sent out 
Some time since with the prospectus. Fifteen species are described, 
carrying us through the families Turdide, Saxicolide, Sylviide, 
and nearly through the Paride. Though nominally a work on the 
birds of Florida, it embraces many biographical and other details 
based upon observations made in New England, thus giving quite 
