Recent Ornithological Publications. 463 
the products of Mr. Wolfs pencil will find an additional attrac¬ 
tion,in some of the woodcuts, especially the frontispiece to Vol. I., 
where the author is represented as beset by a noisy group of 
Curl-crested Toucans ( Pteroglossus beauharnaisi), excited by the 
cries of one of their wounded companions. 
The f Edinburgh Philosophical Journal ' for July last contains 
a description, by Sir William Jardine, of a West African species 
of Spine-tailed Swift (which has been hitherto confounded with 
A. sabini), under the nam e Acanthylis hartlaubi. The bird is the 
same as that described by us, at the Meeting of the Zoological 
Society on the 26th of May last, as Chcetura cassini *. Sir William 
Jardine quotes the notice of our paper having been read from 
the report given in the ‘ Athenaeum' of May 30th, but remarks 
that he “ cannot recognize such notices as descriptions, or as any 
authority for a name.” To this we may reply that it has been 
the general practice of naturalists to consider papers read before 
learned Societies, and subsequently published in their “ Pro¬ 
ceedings ” and “ Transactions,” as bearing date from the time of 
their being read; and that if this practice be followed, the name 
hartlaubi must give way to that of cassini. On the other hand, 
there can be no doubt that the former name is that under which 
the first published description of the bird appears. We trust that 
our two respected brethren of the British Ornithological Union 
at Bremen and Philadelphia, who are so nearly concerned in the 
matter, will not fall out upon this grave question of precedence. 
In the 58th Number of Mr. Breeds f Birds of Europe/ published 
on the 1st of July last, the history of the “Birds of Europe not 
observed in the British Isles ” is terminated, and an Appendix 
containing some additional species, omitted from the body of the 
work, commenced. At the beginning of this Appendix we are 
startled by the appearance of a new European species of Accipiter , 
proposed to be called Accipiter gurneyi. The specimens upon 
which this supposed new species is founded are those procured 
at Beyrout by Mr. Louis Lauretta, and noticed in Mr. Gurney's 
article in the first volume of this Journal (p. 390) as Accipiter 
* See P. Z. S., 1863, p. 205. 
