Recently published Ornithological Works , 241 
(p. 46) Dr. T. H. Streets describes a new Duck from Wash¬ 
ington Island, one of the Fanning group in the Pacific, which 
he proposes to call Chaulelasmus couesi. It is in plumage 
like C. streperus in winter dress, but much smaller in size. 
In the third number Dr. E. Coues gives some interesting re¬ 
marks on the number of the primaries in the Oscines. In 
the fourth number is an excellent paper by Mr. Ridgway on 
geographical variation in Dendrceca palmarum , and Dr. Mer¬ 
rill, in his Notes on Texan Birds,” introduces several species 
as new to the United States. Notices of new publications 
are given in the last three numbers. 
19. Palmen’s Migration-routes of Birds. 
[Ueber die Zugstrassen der Vogel von J. A. Palmen, Docent der Zoo- 
logie an der Universitat Helsingfors. Leipzig, Engelmann. 1 vol. 8vo, 
pp. 292.] 
Some of our readers may be acquainted with an excellent 
academic dissertation, “Om Eoglarnes Elyttnings vagar,” 
published by Prof. Palmen at Helsingfors in 1874. We have 
now a revised and augmented translation of the above-named 
work in a tongue better known to most English naturalists, 
and well worthy of their study. It is an attempt to answer 
the question, What routes are taken by migratory birds from 
their breeding-places to their winter-quarters and back again ? 
For good reasons, explained by our author, special attention 
is given to some twenty species which breed in the Polar 
islands, or only in the extreme north of Europe, in order to 
solve this problem; and their distribution at different seasons 
throughout the Old World is carefully studied. An outline 
map shows at a glance the results arrived at as regards the 
arctic categories of migrants. But much more work remains 
to be done before any thing like a complete answer can be 
given to the problem which Prof. Palmen is studying. 
20. Dr. Streets’s Account of the Fanning Islands. 
[Some Account of the Natural History of the Fanning Group of Islands. 
By Dr. Thomas H. Streets, U.S. N. Amer. Nat. xi. pp. 65 (1877).] 
An interesting notice of the birds of the Fanning group 
of islands, in the Pacific, is given in the f American Naturalist ’ 
