Recent Ornithological Publications . 413 
recurs to mind; and the latter is most decidedly not, as he 
formerly suggested, the wild Peafowl of the island of Ceylon. 
2. French. 
Some months ago we suggested (Ibis, 1865, p. 223) that a 
great ornithological coup was incubating in France. Events 
prove us right, though at that time we had no idea of the real 
state of the case. A report submitted in March last to the 
Academic des Sciences by a Commission composed of some of 
the most illustrious French paleontologists and naturalists* 
announces that the “ Grand Prix des Sciences Physiques ” for 
1865 has been adjudged to M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards for his 
“ Recherches d^anatomie comparee et de paleontologie pour 
servir a Phistoire de la faune ornithologique fran 9 aise aux 
epoques tertiaires et quaternaires.” We are delighted to find 
that this interesting subject has at length found a w 7 orthy ex¬ 
positor. The author of the treatise—if two folio volumes of 
text and six of plates may be called a treatise—according to the 
report upon it, has done his work extremely well, and we cannot 
doubt that, when published, as we hope it soon will be, it will 
prove of the highest value to all who hold, as we do, that it is 
impossible from a philosophical point of view to disconnect the 
sciences of palseontology and zoology. As we recently heard it 
well put by Prof. Huxley —“ Palseontology is simply the biology 
of the past; and a fossil animal differs only in this regard from a 
stuffed one, that the one has been dead longer than the other, for 
ages instead of for days.” M. A. Milne-Edwards seems to have 
thrown great light on the Ornis of the French eocene and mio- 
cene rocks (the French pliocene formation is without any trace 
of birds), as well as on that of the quaternary deposits. It is 
stated that all the fossil birds of the tertiary epoch can be included 
in the natural groups which still exist; though, as might be 
expected, none of these species are identical with living forms* 
and some are types of entirely new genera. On the other 
* Rapport sur le Concours pour le grand prix des sciences physiques. 
Commissaires: MM. d’Archiac, Elie de Beaumont, Daubree, de Verneuil, 
de Quatrefages rapporteur. Comptes Rendus des seances de l’Academie 
des Sciences, 5 Mars, 1866. 
