462 Recent Ornithological Publications. 
XL.-— Recent Ornithological Publications. 
1. English Publications. 
Although 'The Naturalist on the Amazons'* is not specially 
addressed to the ornithologist, Mr. Bates's volumes will receive 
a hearty welcome from every lover of nature, whatever particular 
branch of animal or vegetable life he may turn his attention to. 
Mr. Bates left England, in company with Mr. Wallace, in 1847, 
and remained nearly twelve years, without intermission, at various 
stations on the banks of the Amazon, between Para and San 
Paulo. During this time he devoted himself without ceasing to 
natural history, and collected specimens of nearly 15,000 species 
of various classes of animals, the far greater proportion of 
these being insects, to the study of which class Mr. Bates has 
principally paid attention. It is much to be regretted that 
Mr. Bates's collection of birds, of which about 360 species were 
obtained, has been dispersed without any complete recordf 
having been preseryed of their names and localities. Unfortu¬ 
nately, too, Mr. Wallace lost the greater part of his collections 
by shipwreck on his return-voyage to England, so that the 
opportunity of making a valuable contribution to ornithological 
geography which might have resulted from the careful record 
of the localities of the specimens of these two diligent collectors 
has been lost. This is the more to be regretted as we have few 
authorities on the ornithology of the Amazons, except Spix and 
Martius and the somewhat unsatisfactory labours of MM. Castel- 
nau and Deville; and it will probably be many years before two 
naturalists so capable as Messrs. Wallace and Bates will again 
devote themselves to the task. 
Though, as we have already stated, entomology is Mr. Bates's 
forte, numerous passages of especial interest to the ornithologist 
will be found throughout his volumes; and those who admire 
* The Naturalist on the River Amazons, a record of adventures, habits 
of animals, sketches of Brazilian and Indian life and aspects of nature 
under the Equator during eleven years of travel. By Henry Walter Bates. 
2 vols. London, 1863. Murray. 
t A list of one of Mr. Bates’s collections of birds from Ega and the Rio 
Javarri will be found in the ‘ Proceedings of the Zoological Society ’ for 
1857, p. 261. 
