324 abstracts: ornithology 



Many theories were advanced regarding the cause of this peculiar 

 malady. One of these attributed it to a bacterial or protozoan in- 

 fection. Some persons claimed that the birds were poisoned by sul- 

 phurous or sulphuric acid from the smelters near Salt Lake City; 

 and still other people contended that the sickness was due to the waste 

 waters from the settling ponds of the sugar factories. A number of 

 additional but much less plausible theories were also suggested. The 

 investigations finally carried on about Great Salt Lake have clearly 

 proved that the real cause is a toxic action of certain soluble salts 

 found in alkali, such as the chlorides of calcium and magnesium. The 

 birds take these into the system by feeding in water heavily charged 

 with them, in places such as drying flats about the margin of Great 

 Salt Lake, particularly in the Bear River region. Fresh water is the 

 only cure, and this has been found effective in all cases of the sickness 

 where the birds treated were not too far gone. Birds slightly affected 

 and even many that were entirely helpless recovered nearly always 

 when simply given moderately fresh water to drink. Since the cause 

 of this disease over wide areas in the northern part of Great Salt Lake 

 is the restriction of the inflow of fresh water, the chief possible means 

 of alleviation must be found in the draining of the mud flats and 

 the increase, somehow, of the inflow of fresh water. 



Harry C. Oberholser. 



ORNITHOLOGY.— iV<?/^5 on North American birds. VI. Harry C. 

 Oberholser. Auk 35: 463-467. 1918. 



Examination of a series of specimens of the belted kingfisher shows 

 that Streptoceryle alcyon caurina is a readily recognizable race by 

 reason of its greater size alone. Although the American bam owl has 

 been recently made a subspecies of the South American Tyto perlata, 

 the comparison of a series of specimens with examples of the European 

 races indicates that the North American bird is only subspecifically 

 related to them, and that it must therefore stand as Tyto alba pratin- 

 cola. All the American forms of Certhia are certainly but subspecies, 

 and are undoubtedly forms of the European Certhia familiaris, not of 

 Certhia hrachydactyla Brehm, as claimed by a recent author. In a 

 recent revision of the Paridae by Dr. C. E- Hellmayr, Penthestes ca- 

 rolinensis was made a subspecies of Penthestes atricapillus, but a close 

 study of these birds in life and in the cabinet indicates that they are 

 entirely distinct species. The race of Myrtle warbler described as 



