40 
Recent Literature. 
It would be superfluous to recall the attention of working ornithologists 
to a publication whose merits are so obvious and so fully recognized 
already. We would rather seek to interest the larger class of persons 
who are lovers of nature, and have the means and leisure to gratify their 
tastes. So highly ornate a work is necessarily expensive, and its success- 
ful completion would seem contingent upon the support it receives. Too 
many cheap, flashy books on natural history find a place in parlors, and 
even in libraries, where we should expect to find the evidences of a more 
cultivated taste, and where a work like the present could most desirably 
replace others so inferior. The position which these “ Illustrations ” may 
finally secure in the archives of science can only be told hereafter, when 
the work is completed ; but, meanwhile, the beauty of each number is its 
own “ excuse for being,” and its own recommendation to favor. 
Part II, which appeared last October, contains Plates IV, V, and VI, 
being illustrations of the nest*s and eggs of Cyanospiza cyanea, Agelccus 
phceniceus, and Tyrannus Caroline?! sis, with the text of these species, and 
also of Quiscalus ceneus — the plate of the latter, we presume, being in 
preparation for the next number. Some delay in the appearance of the 
Part was doubtless unavoidable under the circumstances; but we shall 
look for further instalments to be published with regularity, and as rap- 
idly as may be consistent with their faithful execution. — E. C. 
Coues’s Bibliography of American Ornithology. — It gives us 
great pleasure to notice the appearance of a “ Second Instalment ” * of Dr. 
Coues’s “ Universal Bibliography of Ornithology.” This part gives the 
titles of “ Faunal Publications ” relating to Central and South America, 
or that portion of America forming the so-called “ Neotropical Begion.” 
Although containing only about 700 titles, “ it is scarcely less complete,” 
the author tells us, “ and no less accurate,” than the portion relating to 
the Faunal Publications of North America. In scope and character it is 
the exact counterpart of the last-named work,f and is worthy of the same 
high praise that has been universally accorded the first instalment of this 
great undertaking. The digests of the principal works and papers give 
everything that can be reasonably desired in such a connection, and prob- 
ably very few titles calling for record here have escaped the author’s at- 
tention. We miss, however, reference to Mr. Ridgway’s papers , % recently 
published in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum 
for 1878, although those of Mr. Lawrence in the same volume are duly 
entered. Beginning with Marcgrave, in 1648, the list of titles is brought 
* Second Instalment of American Ornithological Bibliography. By Dr. 
Elliott Coues, U. S. A. Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geograph. Survey of the Terri- 
tories. Vol. V, pp. 239-330. Sept. 6, 1879. 
+ See this Bulletin, Vol. IV, pp. 56, 57. 
X For a notice of these, see below, pp. 41, 42. 
