Recently published Ornithological Works. 273 
references to some extent when, at the completion of the 
book, he prepares the preface. A fall list and abstract of the 
contents of all the papers and books on South-African birds, 
inserted there, cannot fail to be useful. 
The second volume of the c Catalogue of Birds in the British 
Museum'*, upon which Mr. Sharpe is engaged, was issued 
in December last. It includes the whole of the Owls as far 
they are at present known. Mr. Sharpe adopts the outline 
of the arrangement submitted by the authors of the ‘ Nomen- 
clator Avium Neotropicalium ' to Professor Newton when 
engaged upon the Owls in his new edition of Yarrell's f British 
Birds/ and divides the Striges into Bubonidge and Strigidse, 
the latter containing Stria; and its ally Phodilus, the former 
the rest of the Owls. The Bubonidse are again subdivided 
into two subfamilies, Buboninse and Syrniinse, these divi¬ 
sions being based chiefly upon the development of the ear¬ 
opening and the presence or absence of an opercular fold at¬ 
tached to it. 
This, we believe, gives a fairly natural arrangement of the 
larger groups of the Striges, as far as they can be determined 
from the examination of characters which are chiefly external. 
As in his volume on the Accipitres, Mr. Sharpe gives “ keys " 
to both genera and species, which add greatly to the utility 
of the work, and has devoted much labour and time to 
elaborate descriptions of each species, as well as to the 
different states or phases of plumage in which they are found. 
We regret to think that these descriptions, many of them 
exceeding a page in length, are not destined to be much 
studied; for the point sought for in determining a species 
from Mr. Sharpe's book will be more readily found in his 
“ key," or in the “ observations " attached to the descriptions, 
than in the descriptions themselves. Mr. Sharpe's difficulties 
in this respect are to be traced to the intricate character of 
the colouring of the plumage of most Owls, which defies an 
* Catalogue of the Striges, or Nocturnal Birds of Prey, in the Collec¬ 
tion of the British Museum. By It. Bowdler Sharpe. 8vo, pp. 325, 14 
plates. London: 1875. 
