There are scat

middle feathers which are partially white. tered markings, moreover, of black, intermingled with white on the back and wings. All else is a pure white above and beneath. The female is perhaps not of such glossy plumage and has less white on the back. She is also smaller than her mate by half an inch. Total length 13 inches.

Another species from Southeastern New Guinea, collected by Mr. Stone and others, is called Cracticus mentalis or spaldingii. This Dr. E. P. Ramsay of the Sydney Museum believes to be identical with C. crassirostris, a species separated by Count Salvadori from C. quoyi, already described, though by some regarded as one and the same. C. mentalis is about 10 inches long. The white is banded so as to divide the black of neck and back. Chin black.

In addition to those not very happily named birds-Eupetes-already mentioned in a previous article, two or three species may be briefly described.

Eupetes incertus is colored above a warm ruddy brown, the tail not quite so bright. White, bordered by dusky covers the throat, side face and abdomen. Over the chest and along the side body the plumage is rufous, the under tail coverts buff. Bill and feet are dark. Total length about 7 inches. The mountains of the northwest are the home of this species, as also of Eupetes leucostictus whose breast is flecked with white as its name indicates. This Eupetes is boldly colored with its chestnutbrown head and mantle, and its glossed dark green body and black wings spotted white on the coverts. Instead, however, of the usual white throat, the throat is black, although there is much white on either side. Black marks, too, lie on the face near the eye, the chin and upper breast. The lower parts are gray with a bluish tinge. The tail is black, the exterior feathers tipped with white, the middle ones oily green. The bill, feet and eye are black. Altogether this specimen is a remarkably fine one, unlike, in many respects, most of its family.

Eupetes pulcher, discovered in the Astrolabe Mountains, by Mr. Goldie, may be briefly described as differing from E. castanotus (AMER. NAT., No. 343, p. 634) only in having the head

a decidedly dusky shade instead of chestnut, and a narrow black edging to the throat in place of a somewhat broad band of black. Length 9 inches. Female a trifle smaller.

Eupetes ajax (Temm.) or Cinclosoma ajax, as Dr. Sharpe prefers to call it, classing it as distinct from the Eupetes, is a thrushlike bird about the same size as the foregoing. The general color above is a dull brown, becoming darker near and upon the tail and wings. The wing coverts, however, are a shining black; the same is true of the exterior tail feathers, excepting their ends. About the head also there is considerable glossy black which runs down the sides of the neck and becomes the sole color of the throat and upper breast.

White, which appears on the face, is seen on the underparts sometimes rimmed with a streak of black, as on the breast and abdomen, sometimes intermixed with it as on the tail and wing coverts. The sides of the body are of a ruddy tinge.

The general color of Eupetes nigricrissus above, including the tail and wings, is bluish, becoming dark, almost black towards the wing extremities, with bluish margins. On the face, especially about the eye there is much black; a band of the same runs around the neck, bordering the pure white throat. White spots the cheeks, also enclosed by black. The under parts are a slate color, with a bluish cast; this is true ast well of the tail and under wing. Length 8 inches. The female is similar though a little smaller. The male lacks the clear stripe of white above the eye, which the female possesses. Habitat, Southeastern New Guinea.

Of the Drymoedus, a group allied with the Eupetes, a species named Drymoadus beccarii is the inhabitant of Southern New Guinea and the neighboring islands. The color of this pretty bird is a warm brown above, the head darker, the wings pale brown and black with white tips. The tail is similarly marked. White and black markings diversify the side face about the eye. The rest of the face and throat are clear white. The under parts are a buff, more or less variable; the crissum a dark brown. As on the wings above, so below the coloration contains bars of white in addition to the dusky brown. The bill is black. The length is about 7 inches.

Another bird of kindred species and not very unlike in plumage is Orthonyx novæguineae. In this case, however, the white on the under surface is far more extended. This hue is intruded upon by brown and black. The white above is less developed.

Pomatorhinus isidorii of the same family does not differ greatly in appearance. It is rather longer than the preceding and of a prevailing brown or russet, shaded more or less. Its length is about 8 inches. The female is like the male, perhaps a trifle larger in size.

A much smaller genus of birds is Crateroscelis, represented in New Guinea by two species, C. murina and C. monarcha. Here the ground color is still brown, brighter on the tail, darker on the head. Even the throat which is white is slightly tinged. So, too, the abdomen and lower parts generally. Total length 4.5 inches. The latter species has more white upon the under body, otherwise is mainly like the preceding.

RECENT LITERATURE.

Murray's Introduction to the Study of Sea-Weeds.'-In this work from the press of Macmillan & Co., George Murray has given us a book which will be of much service to those beginning the study phycology. The introduction treats briefly of the history of phycology, of the geographical and littoral distribution, and the structure of seaweeds, and there is appended thereto some valuable information on the collection and preservation of material. Following the introduction there is given a well selected list of eighty books and papers on phycology. The book is illustrated by eight full paged colored plates-four on the red, two on the green and two on the brown sea-weeds- and eighty-eight figures in the text. The figures in the colored plates are somewhat crowded, and the specimens figured are in some cases rather

'An Introduction to the Study of Sea-weeds, by George Murray, F. R. S. E., F. L. S., Keeper of the department of Botany, British Museum. With eight colored plates and eighty-eight other illustrations. London, Macmillan & Co., and New York, 1895, 271 pp., 12 mo.

fragmentary, but the figures in the text are very good. Most of them having been taken from the recent works of Retuke, Solms-Lauback and the author.

Five sub-classes are recognized, i. e., Phaeophyceae, Chlorophyceae, Diatomacea, Rhodophyceae and Cyanophyceae. The general arrangement of the book is poor; the more complex groups are treated of first and the simpler last, except in the Rhodophyceae, where the reverse order is followed. The Rhodophyceae moreover " present so many difficulties to be understood only after the study of other groups that the author has chosen the Phaophyceae with its familiar forms of seawracks and tangles for the first sub-class. The Chlorophyceae and Diatomacea follow naturally. The Rhodophyceae next make a series by themselves, and finally, come the simple Cyanophycea. In the Phaeophyceae seventeen orders are recognized which are the same as those of Kiellman in Engler and Prantl's Pflanzenfamilien with a few exceptions. Spermatochnus is placed in the Sporochnaceœ and Myriotrichia in the Elachistacea instead of each standing in an order by itself; the Dictyotea are placed between the Cutlereaceœ and Tilopteridacea instead of being left out altogether; the Ralfsiaceœ are placed near the Sphacelariacea instead of near the Laminariacea as they have been by Kiellman and others. Splachnidium, a monotypic genus found only in the southern oceans, which has until recently been included among the Fucaceae, is placed in an order by itself-the Splachnidiacea. It has been found that the conceptacles of Splachnidium contain sporangia similar to those of the Laminariacea instead of oospores and antheridia, hence it is placed near that order. The marine Chlorophyceae are treated under eleven orders; many recent facts as to their reproduction being incorporated. At the end of two groups, the Pereclinea and the Coccospheres and Rhabdospheres are briefly mentioned as being on the borderland between the vegetable and animal kingdom. In the twenty pages devoted to the Diatomaceœ, the structure, reproduction, geographical and geological distribution are quite fully discussed, but nothing is said of the arrangement of the groups and very little of its systematic position. We can agree with the author that the diatoms should not be placed in the Phaeophycea solely because they have a coloring matter closely related to that of the brown sea-weeds, but we can hardly agree that a siliceous covering and the presence of diatomine are sufficient to separate so widely two groups otherwise so closely related as the diatoms and desmids.

According to the preface "the account of the Rhodophyceae is based on the scattered papers of Schmitz, who by utilizing his own researches

and the splendid investigations of Thuret and Bornet, has almost wholly altered the classification of the sub-class." Four orders are recognized, based upon the development of the cystocarp; the Menalionacea, Gagartinacea, Rhodomenacea, Cryptonemiaceœ. The Bungiacea, including Perphyra, are placed at the end of the Rhodophycea as an Anhang. In the last ten pages the Cyanophyceae are briefly treated under two orders, the Nostocaceae and Clerocaccacea. Throughout the work each order and in the larger orders each family is synoptically treated under four heads; general character, thallus, reproduction and geographical distribution. In it are embodied the results of the latest investigation on all groups, much having been taken from the able investigations of the author and his associates. Errors are comparatively few, one of the most noticeable being the mentioning of genus Egregia as one of the Fucaceae (P. 55). It is again mentioned in its proper place among the Laminariaceae (P. 85).

DE ALTON SAUNDERS.

Taxonomy of the Crinoids.-The true position of a science in the scale of progress is measured by the degree of perfection exhibited in the systematic arrangement of the phenomena of which it treats. Its claims to philosophic recognition are proportional to the accuracy of the genetic relationships shown in its system of classification. If this be true of a general science, it is no less a reality in its various departments. There is, perhaps, nowhere a better exemplification than the Crinoids; and no zoological group has made in recent years more rapid progress towards a rational classification.

The data upon which the systematic arrangement of the stemmed echinoderms rests are elaborately set forth in the lately issued work of Messrs. Charles Wachsmuth and Frank Springer. It is of great interest to know that the advancement in an understanding of the group has been almost wholly from the paleontological side and that the results are accepted practically without change by the most eminent students of the living forms. As is well known, the crinoids are to-day almost extinct; but that in past geological ages they were the most prolific forms of life. On account of the peculiar construction, unusually great opportunities are afforded for the solution of morphological problems, and full advantage has been taken. Upon so firm a foundation does the classification of the crinoids, as prepared by Wachsmuth and Springer now rest, that it is hardly probable that it will require radical change for a century to come.

2 North American Fossil Crinoidea Camerata: Memoirs Museum Comp. Zool., 2 parts, 800 pp., and atlas of 83 plates. Cambridge, 1895.