Recently published Ornithological Works. 373 
possess, and notes on writers on British Birds quoted by 
such authors as Aldrovandi ( e . g ., Elliot & Wotton); certainly 
he should add accounts of the later editions of White’s 
i Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne/ which he 
disposes of at present in one line. 
In connexion with the work of John Caius, Evans’s trans¬ 
lation in the Appendix to f Turner on Birds’ is not of the 
whole, but only of extracts. 
/ 
42. Penard on the Birds of Guiana. 
[I)e Vogels van Guyana (Surinam, Cayenne en Demerara). Door 
Frederik Paul Penard en Arthur Philip Penard. 1 vol., 8vo. Para¬ 
maribo. London : Kegan Paul & Co. 58 7 pp.] 
This is the first portion of a new and original work on 
the birds of Guiana, prepared by two brothers—Messrs. F. P. 
and A. P. Penard of Paramaribo. The book, we are given 
to understand, is the result of a long and arduous study of 
the subject under most difficult circumstances, of which the 
want of many necessary books was perhaps one of the 
smallest. It is chiefly noteworthy on account of the 
information which it contains on the life-history and habits 
of many species previously little known except by name. 
Besides recording their own observations, the authors have 
received great assistance in this part of their labours from 
numerous assistant observers, including native Indians, who 
make their home in the forests and on the rivers of Guiana, 
and live by shooting and fishing. 
Besides the systematic part, which, beginning with the 
Pygopodes, contains a survey of all the known species of the 
birds of Guiana up to the end of the Picarise, the authors 
give a general and very interesting account of the local 
distribution of the birds in the various districts and at 
different seasons of the year. They also endeavour to 
explain the rather startling ornaments borne by the males 
of some birds by suggesting their origin from “ mental 
peculiarities ” induced by dances, songs, fights, and other 
habits, and not simply from what is called ci sexual selection.” 
Thus the erectile frontal crest of certain Tyrant-birds is 
ser. ix.— vol. hi. 2 c 
