its "Range outside the British Islands." This feature alone would make the book; it supplies a want long felt, and could not be contributed by a better authority. We do not say it has been unattempted before, but it is here detailed with a fulness and with a method that makes reference very easy, and will enlarge the horizon of many British collectors. "Habits" succeed the last section, and then follow "Nest" and "Eggs."
Dr. Sharpe in his "Nomenclature" is content to be original, and we share his belief that many opponents of his views on this subject "will be found adopting my nomenclature in the near future." Revolutionary as some corrections at first appear, especially the employment of identical generic and specific names, reasons, and, we think, good reasons, are given in the preface to the fourth volume, which will well repay perusal. In Fishes Scomber scomber has long been a well-used name for the common Mackerel, and though Scomber scombrus has been shown to be what Linnæus intended, the use of the incorrect term evidently did not occasion much disquiet to ichthyologists. Thynnus thynnus has also been used for the Tunny.
These volumes are published at a low price, and possess many coloured plates, which, if not in the highest form of art, are at least trustworthy references.
There are some subjects which blossom perennially in literature, and whose interest is never exhausted. An example is afforded in British Zoology by Birds, which, by the number of their students, observers, and collectors, and the almost universal regard they inspire, have long incited the pencil of the artist and the pen of the naturalist, and volume follows volume on their story. In quite recent years we have had a new and revised edition of Yarrell; Seebohm's volumes devoted both to birds and their eggs; Howard Saunders's well-known and generally followed Manual; Lord Lilford's magnificent illustrations; Bowdler Sharpe's contribution to Lloyd's Natural History, not to mention works on the same subject by Hudson, Dixon, and others; and now there lie before us the first three handsome volumes of this
