404 Herr Badeker’s and Dr. Brewers Oological Works. 
We will, however, make bold to say that there is always a 
difference between the hues of the eggs of the Common and 
Velvet Scoters, unless indeed they have both suffered from the 
effects of air and light, and a more decided difference than is 
shown in Herr Badeker’s figures. 
With regard to the remainder of the work, it will suffice to 
point out one or two slight inaccuracies, and to take a cursory 
glance at some of those points which may be regarded as pre¬ 
senting most interest to British Oologists. Our authors are 
certainly in error when they speak of the Three-toed Woodpecker 
of Europe being found in North America. Though by Swainson 
and older writers one of the Nearctic species was mistaken for 
the Linnean Ficus tridactylus , there can be no question of its 
distinctness. So also it is a mistake to suppose that the range 
of the Common Kingfisher extends to Eastern Asia and Africa, 
each of these regions possessing its own stock of allied but quite 
independent forms. We suspect too that Herr Schrader, invert¬ 
ing the proper process, and identifying (?) the bird by the egg, 
instead of the egg by the bird, has successfully laid the founda¬ 
tion of an error in asserting that the Chiff-chaff goes as far north 
as 70° lat. We are indeed pretty sure that if it occurs at all in 
the Scandinavian peninsula, it is only in the extreme south. 
But the refutation of inaccuracies such as these, several more of 
which could be mentioned, many persons may consider irrelevant 
to the present subject, though for our own part, regarding the 
geographical distribution of species as one of the most interesting 
and important studies within the whole range of natural science, 
we are at all times anxious to see mistakes of this sort corrected. 
We must remark that though our authors follow a practice 
which we cannot but commend, in giving for each species an 
English and French as well as a German common name, yet, by 
some extraordinary mischance, not to take notice of those acci¬ 
dental misspellings to which writers of a foreign language, and 
that language English, are always liable, they seldom light upon 
a name appropriate, or indeed at all commonly in use. Thus, 
what reader in this country would recognize Aquila heliaca as 
the “ King’s Eagle,” or Falco communis as the “ Blue-black 
