( 36 ) 
I January, 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
Siberia in Asia: a Visit to the Valley of the Yenesay in East 
Siberia , with Description of the Natural History , Migration 
of Birds, &c. By Henry Seebohm. London : John 
Murray. 
Some time ago we had the pleasure of examining Mr. Seebohm’s 
“ Siberia in Europe,” and we are glad to find that the work 
before us is fully equal in interest to its companion volume. 
With the same main objedt in view — the investigation of the 
geographical distribution of birds, and of the variations caused 
by locality — the author has explored Siberia proper as far as the 
Valley of the Yenesay, and made a number of most important 
observations. Nothing can better show the difference in spirit 
between the Old and the New Natural History than the manner 
in which he has carried out these explorations. An ornithologist 
of the year 1776 who had gone over the same ground would have 
simply presented us with an inventory of species to be found in 
certain localites ; he would have duly indexed all forms he saw 
differing from their nearest West European allies as “ new spe- 
cies,” or else have overlooked their peculiarities altogether ; and 
the question why and how they differ, if it ever entered his mind, 
would have been suppressed. 
But the book is not entirely filled with bird-lore. We meet 
with valuable fadts anent the topography, the resources, and the 
climate of the regions traversed, and on the peculiarities of their 
inhabitants. 
In the neighbourhood of Omsk Mr. Seebohm remarked that 
some of the villages were exclusively Russian, whilst others had 
a Tartar, and consequently Mohammedan, population. He notes 
that “ the cross was too often the symbol of drunkenness, dis- 
order, dilapidation, and comparative poverty, whilst the crescent 
was almost invariably the sign of sobriety, order, enterprise, and 
prosperity. At Omsk he saw, in the museum formed by Prof. 
Slofftzoff several birds which have not been recorded east of the 
Urals, such as the blackcap, the garden warbler, and the Idterine 
tree-warbler. He adds, however, in comment, that the specimens 
bore no special labels to authenticate the localities, so that the 
fadt of their having been shot near Omsk must be accepted with 
hesitation. 
At Yenesaisk Mr. Seebohm met with the first indication of 
interbreeding between the carrion crow and the hoodie. About 
75 per cent of the crows in that distridt are thorough-bred car- 
rions, perhaps 5 per cent pure hoodies, and the remaining 2,0 per 
