Page:Bird-lore Vol 08.djvu/50

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

32 Bird- Lore Additional Data to a Preliminary List of the Land Birds of Southeastern Michigan, 'by Bradshaw H. Swales; 'Some Breeding Rec- ords from East Point, Georgia,' by William J. Mills; 'A Preliminary list of the Birds of Summit, New Jersey,' by H. H. Hann, in which 149 species are briefly annotated. In 'Ornithology a Science,' P. A. Taver- ner presents an ornithologist's reply to the query, 'Why should we study birds?' and in 'Priority' the same writer makes a some- what illogical protest against the applica- tion of the ' Law of Priority ' in zoological nomenclature. It is our misfortune to live at a time of the greatest effort to place the names of birds on a consistent nomenclatural basis. Did not the spirit of the age pro- hibit tolerance of error, we might bequeath, with additions, our inherited weight of nomenclatural sins to those who come after us, and earn a curse where we may hope for a blessing. Under 'Special Investigations for 1906' the editor outlines a plan for a study of breeding habits, which, if bird-students were as numerous as bird-lovers, might yield valuable returns; 'General Notes,' and ' Notices of Recent Literature ' conclude the number.— F. M. C. The Warbler. — The fourth and con- cluding number of the first volume of the second series of this magazine was published October 31, 1905. It contains colored plates of the eggs of the Carolina Paroquet, laid by captive birds in the possession of Robert Ridgway, and of the egg of Clarke's Crow. The text includes the fourth and last instal- ment of the editor's ' Birds Breeding Within the Limits of the City of New York.' A prefatory note stating that only those species have been treated which have come under the author's" personal observation" explains the omission from this list of some forty species which doubtless nest within the limits specified. The editor also contri- butes ' Birds Observed at Rangeley Lakes, Maine, June 9 to 15, 1905,' which, with the New York City list, would be more useful for reference if the species were systemati- cally arranged, and ' Long Island Bird Notes.' R. D. Hoyt presents some interest- ing observations on the ' Nesting of Ward's Heron ' in Florida; P. B. Peabody writes at length on 'The Long-tailed Chickadee,' and A. T. Wayne more briefly on the 'White-eyed Towhee,' which he thinks "should be accorded full specific rank." — F. M. C. Book News Students of the habits of birds will do well to read Prof. Francis H. Herrick's ' Life and Instinct' (reprinted from West- ern Reserve University Bulletin, Vol. VIII, No. 3, May, 1905), in which a trained ani- mal psychologist discusses various matters in relation to the habits of animals about which there has been much divergence of opinion among writers less qualified to speak with authority. A list of birds collected in southern Sin- aloa, Mexico, by J. H. Battey, during 1903-1904, by Waldron DeWitt Miller, (Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. XXI, 1905, PP- 3 39 — 369) enumerates 160 species and subspecies, two of which, Amazona albi- frons nana and Amizilis beryllina -viola, are described as new. The proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences I 1905, pages 680-690) contains a list, by Witmer Stone, of birds collected as observed by S N. Rhoads, in the Colorado Delta, Lower California, in February, 1905. Collections of birds made by W. W. Brown, Jr., on the Pearl Islands of Panama Bay and on the Savanna of Panama are re- ported on by John £. Thayer and Outram Banzo in the Bull, of the Museum of Com- parative Zoology, Vol. XLVI, 1905, pages 141-160; and Vol. XLVI, 1906, pages 213- 224, respectively. Bulletin No. 20 of the New York Zoo- logical Society, a 'Pheasants Aviary Num- ber,' announces the completion and filling of the Pheasant Aviary in the New York Zoological Park, "the sixth great install- ment of birds thrown open to the public." The New Orleans 'Picayune' of December 31, 1905, contains a glowing description of the islands off the coast of Louisiana which through the efforts of the Louisiana Audubon Society have been set aside as a bird reser- vation.