36 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist. 



[Vol. XXV 



out doubt ; but the town of Yarmouth has 

 pointed the wa.y to other Canadian muni- 

 cipalities by purchasing an area solely be- 

 cause the birds found it suitable. What a 

 splendid impetus would be given to bird 

 protection if every town that had such a 

 bird colony near it w^ere to extend its in- 

 fluence officially in the interest of its bird 

 neighbours. In the West the care of a 

 prairie slough suitable for wild fowl as 

 the town bird sanctuary would be a worthy 

 line of endeavour for any town or city. 

 The idea could be combined with the pre- 

 sent laudable desire of many municipali- 

 ties in the Western Provinces to reserve 

 park lands in their immediate vicinity. 



HoYES Lloyd. 



Freshwater Crustacea From Canada. 

 ^ince writing my articles on this subject 

 (see tan. Field-I^aturalist, October and 

 November, 1920) I have had the opport- 

 unity of examining some samples of fresh- 

 water invertebrates collected by Dr. A. G. 

 Huntsman in southern New Brunswick 

 and Nova Scotia in the fall of 1920. They 

 contained tlie following new records of 

 Amphipods and Isopods: 



hyalella knickerbockeri, Bate (H. Azte- 

 ka 8auss) : Several young ones from Lock 

 Lomond, near St. John, N.B., October 7, 

 1920, and from Solomon Lake, near Yar- 

 mouth, N.S., October 4, 1920. Asellus com- 

 munis, Say : Several young ones from So- 

 lomon Lake, N.S., October 4, 1920. 



Frits Johansen. 



BOOK REVIEWS. 

 The Auk, No. 3, July, 1920. 



Notes on Some American Ducks, by Al- 

 lan Brooks, 2 plates, pp. 353-367. 



Ornithologists are not as a rule sports- 

 men, and undoubtedly their greatest weak- 

 ness is a lack of personal familiarity with 

 water-fowl. The difficulty of obtaining 

 material for the study of these birds at the 

 most interesting and illuminating time of 

 the year (the close season) is someAvhat to 

 blame for this, but the feeling that birds 

 so systematically hunted must already be 

 well known has tended to turn the atten- 

 tion of ornithologists towards fields that 

 seem to present greater promise. The fact 

 is, however, that the very few sportsmen 

 and shooters, who know any more about 

 ducks than is sufficient to make occasional 

 bags at certain seasons of the year, are sel- 

 dom fitted either by scientific training or 

 inclination to present their obsei'vations in 

 a proper manner. While many old hunt- 

 ers are mines of valuable information, and 

 our sporting magazines are filled with 

 more or less accurate accounts of the habits 

 and characters of -wild fowl, but little of 

 scientific worth has been made public from 

 these sources in America and it takes the 

 closest discrimination to separate that lit- 

 tle from the fiction in which it is buried. 



This paper is therefore of great value as 

 it comes from a man who knows his sub- 

 ject from both the sportsman's and the 

 naturalist's standpoint. It consists of var- 

 ious notes on nine species of British Colum- 



bian ducks. They are too varied to be more 

 than mentioned here, except a detailed 

 analysis of the difference between the Am- 

 erican and Barrow's Golden-eye which is 

 treated at length, with plates showing 

 courtship attitudes of the latter. It is a" 

 coincidence that the author calls atten- 

 tion to the differential features of bill and 

 wind-pipe that the present reviewer dis- 

 cussed in a late number of this journal. 

 Courtship in Birds, bv Chs. W. Townsend, 

 pp. 380-393. 



This is a philosophic study of the stran- 

 ge courtship dances and actions that are in- 

 dulged in by many birds. The author has 

 made a special study of these. and no one 

 is better qualified to generalize upon them, 



Ontario Bird Notes, by J. H. Fleming 

 and Hoyes Lloyd, pp. 429-439. 



A resume of the ornithological develop- 

 ments in Ontario since the publication of 

 Fleming's Birds of Toronto, Auk, XXIII 

 and XXIV, (1906-1907). It includes notes 

 on some 71 species. 



Seventeenth Supplement to the American 

 Ornithologist 's Union Check List of North 

 American Birds, b}^ the Committee on No- 

 menclature, consisting of Witmer Stone, 

 H. C. Oberholser, Jonathan Dwight, T. S. 

 Palmer and Chas. W. Richmond, pp. 439- 

 449. 



When the last Check-list was published 

 in 1910 it was proposed to issue revised 



