4 
THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE. 
Jan., 1891. 
Botany ” for 1870, is identical with R. tenuiarmatus of Lees, 
but quite different from R. corylifoliiis var. purpureas of Bab- 
ington. It is the common bramble about Matlock, and 
often did duty for R. nemorosus in Bloxam’s Fasciculi. 
The name of the great German authority on grasses is 
Hackel, not Haeckel. On page 27 the generic and specific 
name of the wild Raphanus are both misspelt. The name 
of the same authority should always be - contracted in the 
same way, but for Robert Brown Mr. Bagnail has three 
versions, “ R.Br.” “ Brown,” and “ Br.” Under Helianthe- 
mum , Persoon could not possibly be the founder of a genus in 
which Miller founded a species, seeing that the former wrote 
sixty years after the latter. But these and such-like are 
minor matters of detail, and do not affect the sterling merits 
of the work. 
J. G. Baker. 
Kew, Dec. 18, 1890. 
THE BIRDS OF OXFORDSHIRE.* 
Mr. Aplin has given us an excellent and reliable work on 
the birds of Oxfordshire, each page of which bears evidence 
of much careful research and preparation. It is, perhaps, a 
matter of regret that the author’s remarks on the avifauna 
of a very interesting district have to be restricted to an area 
of such very irregular outline, and limited to a space of land, 
near the centre of England, represented by a length of about 
fifty-two, and a breadth varying from seven to twenty-seven 
miles. 
In a work of this class, dealing exclusively with creatures 
of such rapid movement as birds, we are by no means certain 
that it is desirable, in each separate case, to confine the 
notice within what are really purely artificial boundaries, 
designed for local and political purposes, and that it might 
not have been as well to have dealt with a somewhat more 
extended and natural faunal area—like the Upper Thames 
Valley and surrounding districts, or the Upper Thames and 
its tributaries, and thus include some portion or other of the 
neighbouring counties of Warwick, Northampton, Bucks, 
Berks, Gloucester, and Worcester, which, to a greater or less 
extent, touch upon the confines of Oxfordshire. Indeed, the 
author, although adhering with praiseworthy fidelity to the 
defined limit of his work, appears to be conscious of the dis- 
* “ The Birds of Oxfordshire.” By O. V. Aplin, M.B.O.U. With 
a map. Oxford : The Clarendon Press, 1889. 
