171 



BOOK NOTICES AND REVIEWS. 



Three Young Crusoes, published and for sale 

 by Wm. Alphonso Murrill, A.M., Ph.D., Bronx- 

 wood Park, New York City. Price $1.50. 



This book which contains a story of the Life 

 and Adventures of Three Young People on an 

 Island in the West Indies, was written for the enter- 

 tainment of children between the ages of twelve and 

 eighteen years. The characters are fictitious, but 

 the natural history is reliable and visitors to any part 

 of the West Indies may find the book helpful. It 

 consists of thirty-two chapters with eighty-three il- 

 lustrations and two colored plates. 



Teachers will also find this work useful, as it 

 describes the animals, trees, flowers, fruits, birds, 

 fishes and minerals to be found on the Island. 



R. M. G. 



The Aufj- for January, 1919, contains a number 

 of articles of interest to Canadians. 



The Birds of the Red Deer River, Alberta, 

 by P. A. Taverner, pp. 2-21, 4 pi. This is based 

 upon explorations and collections made by the 

 Geological Survey in the Red Deer Valley in 1917, 

 but in addition includes all other ornithological 

 matter to hand on the district. After a genera] in- 

 troduction, description of the region and sources of 

 information, is an annotated list of 79 species, from 

 the grebe through the birds of prey. A second in- 

 stalment is to continue and conclude the list. The 

 plates give typical river views and nesting sites of 

 Ferruginous Roughleg Hawk and Prairie Falcon. 



Further Notes on New Brunswick Birds, 

 by P. B. Philipp and B. S. Bowdish, pp. 36-43, 2 

 pl. This gives the results of ornithological investiga- 

 tions in Northumberland Co., N.B., in the summer 

 of 1917, being additional to papers on the same 

 locally published. Auk, '916, pp. 1-8, and ibid, 

 1917, pp., 265-275. Annotations are given on 43 

 species. Most of the notes are on life-history and 

 oological subjects, but the distributional data in- 

 cluded is of considerable assistance to an under- 

 standing of Maritime Province conditions. Prob- 

 ably the most striking result obtained was the find- 

 ing of four nests of the Cape May Warbler which 

 as a breeding bird remains one of the very rarest of 

 the warblers. The plates are admirable and show 

 nests of the Cape May Warbler and Arctic Three- 

 toed Woodpecker, a Wilson's Snipe on the nest, 

 and a remarkable fine portrait of a Three-toed 

 Woodpecker itself. 



On looking over the list one cannot help wonder- 

 ing at the basis of the subspecific designations. There 

 is nothing to indicate either that specimens were 

 taken, or if taken, who is responsible for and upon 

 what grounds they were diagnosed. The internal 

 evidence suggests that the writers merely followed 



common report", a very common practice nowa- 

 days, but not a scientific method and one that should 

 be reformed. The great majority of the determina- 

 tions are probably correct. One case at least gives 

 force to this protest. Dryohaies villosus leucomelas, 

 the Northern Hairy Woodpecker is given as the 

 local form. Though this race has become firmly 

 fixed in current southern Canadian literature, ac- 

 cording to all exact data available to the reviewer 

 this is, in the nest, a high northern form and its 

 occurrence in summer south of the Gulf is a ques- 

 tionable assumption. The authors may possibly be 

 correct in this case, but without further evidence 

 than the mere statement of a name we are warranted 

 in stating doubt. It is the view of the reviewer that 

 the use of the subspecific name and trinomial is only 

 warranted when specimens have been critically ex- 

 amined and identity established by competent author- 

 ity. Otherwise the specific binominal answers every 

 purpose and is just as exact as hypothetical tri- 

 nomial. 



Notes on Some Birds of the Okanagan 

 Valley, British CoLUMBrA, by J. A. Munro, pp. 

 64-74. This paper gives extensive annotations on 

 twenty species of this interesting section. It con- 

 tains a great amount of life-history and breeding 

 notes on some interesting species. The remarks re- 

 garding the food of some of the hawks is specially 

 interesting to the reviewer. The Big Red-tails are 

 noted as feeding on various small mammals such as 

 Ground and Pine Squirrels and Pikas; and some 

 interesting data is given upon Swainson's Hawk 

 coming in in numbers to feed upon a plague of large 

 black crickets that were eating every green thing in 

 sight near Vernon in 1915. The Magpies are said 

 to be the worst egg thieves of the corvidae and are 

 showing undue increase. The description of Rich- 

 ardson's Grouse is particularly interesting and in- 

 troduces much new information into our literature. 

 On the whole, this is an admirable article. A criti- 

 cism similar to that above would apply equally here. 

 Though we happen to know that Mr. Munro has 

 specimens of all or most of his species and has given 

 them critical examination, this is not evident from 

 the context and its "inside information" that gives 

 us confidence in his subspecific determinaitons. Even 

 then I would like to ask if he is certain it was 

 Planeslicus migratorius propinqua that was seen from 

 a distance teasing the Red-tail (p. 68). As de- 

 scribed, the conditions of observation do not seem 

 all that could be desired for the recognition of this 

 poorly defined form. Without doubt Mr. Munro 

 regards this as the breeding Robin in his section, but 

 we fail to see the necessity of advancing a hypo- 

 thetical subspecies where the species does just as 



