AVES, 
47 
Milne-Edwards^ a. Recherclies Anatomiques et Paleontolo- 
giques pour servir a Phistoire des Oiseaux fossiles de la 
France. Compt. Rend. Ixii. (6 Mars 1866) pp. 506-515. 
Reprinted Ann. Sci. Nat. Zoologie^ 5“® sdr. v. pp. 229-240. 
This is a report by MM. D^Archiac^ Elie de Beaumont, 
Daubree, De Verneuil, and De Quatrefages on the essay which 
obtained the great Prize of the Physical Sciences for 1865. As 
the work is now in course of publication, we hope to speak of it 
at greater length next year. The opinion of the reporters is 
most favourable to it; and those portions (bearing date 1867) 
which we have seen entirely justify their praise. All the fossil 
birds of the tertiary epoch can be included in the natural groups 
which still exist, though none of the species are identical with 
living forms, and some are types of new genera. Of the qua- 
ternary period twenty-three species have been determined, only 
one of which, a very large Grus^ is extinct, though, as regards 
France, two species, Lagopus albus and Nyctea nwectj no longer 
exist there. \Cf. Ibis, 1866, pp. 413, 414.) 
PucHERAN, — . Sur les indications qui pent fournir la Geologic, 
pour Fexplication des differences que pr^sentent les Faunes 
actuelles. Rev. et Mag. de Zoologie, 1866, pp. 3-6, 81-88, 
129-139, 241-255. 
A continuation of the series of papers we noticed last year 
(Zool. Record, ii. pp. 58, 59). It is still unfinished. The first 
two portions contain no ornithological illustrations. From evi- 
dence afforded by the existing Mammalia, the author considers 
he has proved the intimate resemblance between the Faunas of 
Southern Asia and Southern Africa, and he then proceeds 
to inquire whether the ornis of each of these regions does not 
exhibit the same resemblance ; but here,^though the families are 
the same, the genera, however closely allied, are not. Dr. 
Pucheran, after giving long lists of genera, arrives at the con- 
clusion that the three large continents of the Old World present 
one single fauna only, due allowance being made for the differ- 
ences existing between northern and southern forms, which ap- 
pear to meet in a zone corresponding with the ^^Equateur dc 
contraction^'’ of M. Reynaud; and this may therefore be re- 
garded as the veritable ** Equateur zoologique.^^* The author 
then treats of the Algerian fauna, and finds that the birds be- 
longing to it are smaller than their European representatives, 
which he considers to be in harmony with the smaller extent of 
their range, and to be post-established. He finally dwells on 
the slight importance of the different characters of the allied 
speeies of the two countries, as tending to the inference that they 
must have had a common origin. [See also Record on Mam- 
malia, p. 13.] 
Salvin, O. (See Sclater, P. L.) 
