326 Recent Ornithological Publications. 
the production of th e first edition of this booh. It was written 
by Mr. R. Titian Peale, one of the naturalists of the Expedition, 
and bears the date 1842 on its title-page. But few copies—only 
one hundred, it is said—were issued, and the rest, if ever com¬ 
pleted, were destroyed by fire at Washington. However this may 
have been, the volume is one of excessive rarity, and only in very 
few instances has found its way to Europe. A circumstance 
which no doubt rather prevented any attempt to reproduce 
copies of it in its then shape was, that it was hardly a creditable 
book to bring before the scientific world. Being the composi¬ 
tion of one who seems to have had little, if any, previous know¬ 
ledge of his subject, the errors were very numerous. Old, well- 
known birds were described as new; species were referred to 
impossible genera, and the descriptive characters so drawn ^up 
that it was next to hopeless to attempt to use them for the pur¬ 
poses of determination. The public are indebted to Dr. Hartlaub, 
of Bremen, for an extended critical notice of this scarce volume, 
published in Wiegmann’s ‘ Archiv fur Naturgeschichte^/ in 
which such of these mistakes as could be corrected without 
inspection of the type specimens were set right. And we 
cannot understand why Mr. Cassin has hesitated to acknowledge 
the services rendered to science by the author of this admirable 
critique, where the greater part of Peale^s errors were corrected 
eight years ago, and which must manifestly have been of great 
assistance to him in preparing the present edition. 
We subjoin a few notes upon some of the species of birds in¬ 
cluded in Mr. Cassinis list:— 
P. 78. Sarcorhamphus papa has been mentioned as an in¬ 
habitant of Southern Mexico, in P. Z. S. 1857, p. 226, having 
been obtained in Vera Cruz by M. A. Boucard. 
P. 118. Corvus ruficollis .—We cannot believe that this Crow 
is “ not uncommon ” in the island of Madeira, as Mr. Peale has 
stated. It is not mentioned at all in the list of a careful observer 
of the birds of that island, E. Vernon Harcourt, Esq., given in 
the ( Annals of Nat. Hist/ June 1855. We agree with Mr. 
Cassin that it is not a West African species ; and, were it so, the 
zoology of Madeira is purely Palsearctic, and has nothing to do 
* See Wiegmaun’s Archiv f. Naturgesch. xviii. Jahr, 1 Bd. p. 93. 
