December 



published, entitled " Key to North American 

 Birds " (Estes & Lauriat). The physical de- 

 scriptions in this are extremely accurate, but 

 the accounts of their habits are very brief. It 

 is valuable as being the highest authority on all 

 North American birds, and also contains much 

 that is interesting in the more scientific aspects 

 of the subject. 



If one is only dabbling in the study, he will 

 probably content himself with learning merely 

 the popular names of the species, with little re- 

 gard to their relationships ; but if he is ambi- 

 tious to have a distinct classification of them in 

 his mind, he will find it of great assistance to 

 master the scientific names as well, by which 

 the relations of family, genus, and species will 

 be kept constantly in view. This suggestion is 

 not inconsistent with a previous criticism of 

 current classification. Even a poor classifica- 

 tion is infinitely better than none ; and the 

 present grouping is far from poor, as its mis- 

 take (if a layman may be allowed to pass judg- 

 ment) is probably not so much in asserting false 

 relationships, as in adopting, to some extent, 

 principles of classification which are not truly 

 fundamental. And moreover, whether it be a 

 weakness or not, there is a great satisfaction, 



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