Recently published Ornithological Works. 475 
Glasg. ii. p. 69). In these supplementary notes his remarks 
on the increase or decrease of certain species will be read 
with interest. 
——^59. Bureau on the Moulting of portions of the Puffin’s beak. 
[De la mue du bee et des ornements palpebreaux du Macareux Arctique 
Fratercula arctica (Linn.), Steph., apres la saison des amours. Bull, de 
la Soc, Zool. de France, 1878.] 
Mons. Bureau has made the exceedingly interesting dis¬ 
covery that certain portions of the beak of the Puffin^ at the 
base of the maxilla and of the mandible, and also the two 
horny excrescences above and below the eye, are regularly 
shed every year after the breeding-season, and as regularly 
assumed as that season approaches. From observations made 
by the author in a colony of these birds off the coast of Brit¬ 
tany, he is able to give a full account of the process of change 
which the Puffings bill undergoes. The number of deciduous 
pieces is no less than thirteen altogether. These are fully 
described, and their position shown in two plates which ac¬ 
company the paper. Similar changes doubtless take place in 
the other species of Fratercula, as Mons. Bureau suggests. 
These mostly concern our American brethren, who will 
no doubt be not slow to take up so novel and interesting a 
subject for observation. The fact that portions of the bill in 
certain birds are seasonally deciduous is not absolutely a 
novel discovery; for Mr. Bidgway has taught us that the 
horny protuberance on the bill of P elec anus trachyrhynchus 
is shed every year. But this is not nearly so elaborate a per¬ 
formance as that which the Puffin undertakes. We are glad to 
see that this interesting paper has been appreciated on both 
sides of the Atlantic, as shown bj^ Dr. Coues'’s copious notice 
of it in the April number of the Nuttall Bulletin,^ and Mr. 
Harting^s translation (accompanied with a copy of one of the 
plates) in the July number of the ^ Zoologist.^ 
Y Ridgway’s Studies of the American Herodiones. 
[Studies of the American Herodiones. Part I. Synopsis of the Ame¬ 
rican Genera of Ardeidce and Ciconidt ^; including Descriptions of three 
