i&ooft jBteto0 anti 3&etoieto0 The Grouse and Wild Turkeys of the United States, and Their Economic Value. By Sylvester D. Judd. Bulletin No 24, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. Washington 1905. 8vo. 55 pages, 2 plates. This admirable paper treats briefly of the general habits and value as game of our larger gallinaceous birds, and at length of their economic status as revealed by a study of their food. Suggestions are also presented in regard to artificial propagation as a means of increasing the numbers of several species whose existence has been threatened by the combined attacks of the sportsman and market hunter. The whole paper is a model of well-con- ceived and well-directed research, and the widespread interest in the birds with which it deals makes it one of the most impor- tant contributions to economic ornithology issued by the Biological Survey. At the same time it increases our regret for the death of its talented young author. — F. M. C. The Horned Larks and Their Relations to Agriculture. By W. L. McAtee. Bulletin No. 23, Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. Washington, 1905. 8vo. 33 pages, two plates, numerous text cuts. The complicated nature of economic orni- thological problems are well illustrated by this paper. It appears that in those portions of its range where wheat is grown in large quanti- ties the Horned Lark may at certain seasons devour a large amount of grain. Undeniably the bird is then injurious, but its accounts with man should not be balanced on the basis of a single entry. Here, then, appears the economic ornithologist, who posts the debits and credits not of a single month or local- ity, but of a time and area sufficient to war- rant generalizations. As a whole, 79.4 per cent food of the Horned Larks of the United States and Southern Canada consists of weed seed; and Mr. McAtee concludes that the services they render to agriculture are so in excess of the injury they occasion that they deserve "protection at the hands of man." — F. M. C. Bird Guide. Part II. Land Birds East of the Rockies, From Parrots to Bluebirds. By Chester A. Reed. Ob- long 321110. 262 pages, numerous illus- trations in color. C. K. Reed. In this attractive little volume Mr. Reed has succeeded in storing a large amount of information, together with colored figures which should prove of great assistance in identifying birds in life. Under each species is given a brief statement of its principal color, characters, haunts, song, nest and eggs and range. The omission of the authority for matter not based on personal observation renders it impossible to de- termine just what is original and what is not, thereby decreasing the quotable value of this very convenient pocket manual. — F. M C. The Ornithological Magazines The Auk. — Many will welcome in the January number the appearance of a colored plate. One by Mr. Fuertes portrays the adult and young of Kumlien's Gull, a spe- cies not figured before, and illustrates a paper by J. Dwight, Jr., on the plumages and molts of the several white-winged species of Gull which are so arctic in dis- tribution as to be rarely seen in our latitude. The writer considers the Point Barrow Gull and the Glaucous as practically indis- tinguishable. Another technical paper is by H. L. Clark, on 'The Feather Tracts of the Swifts and Hummingbirds,' and his conclu- sions are that both of these groups have common ancestry, while the Goatsuckers are otherwise related. Of more popular interest are the papers in the present number which deal largely with the birds of the southern tier of states. We note the first instalment of a ' List of the Birds of Louisiana,' by Beyer, Allison and Kopman ; ' Notes on the Winter Birds of Hancock county, Mississippi,' by A. Alii- (30)
