Reviews and Book Notices. 69 



concise letter of trausmissal of the author, following which is a prefa- 

 tory- note, by Dr. Hayden, explanatory of the scope and objects of the 

 work. To this succeeds the text of the work proper, occupying five 

 hundred and sixty-five pages, this portion of the work carrjdng the 

 subject through the Passeres (Perching Birds) to and including the 

 Laniidos (Shrikes). 



The biographical portion is especially full in respect to the birds 

 inhabiting the region which gives the book its title ; the text is clear 

 of all unnecessary technicalities, and the various families and species 

 are treated of in that peculiarly attractive manner for which our 

 author is so justly celebrated. These species are also accompanied by 

 full descriptions in both Latin and English, making the work of per- 

 manent value as a text book of the ornithology of that section. 



The subject of the synonymy of North American birds has here re- 

 ceived the fullest possible attention, having been '' worked up anew 

 from the very bottom, as a matter of original personal investigation 

 admitting of nothing at second-hand.^' " Not only the birds of the 

 Colorado Valley, but also all others of North America* are thus ex- 

 haustively treated, their s^-nonymy and bibliography being at length 

 placed upon a satisfactory basis." 



We are glad to observe thai the author's investigations into the 

 synonymy of the various species, disturb the current nomenclature to 

 a remarkabl}^ slight degree ; and as the work in this respect has been 

 especially thorough, ornithologists may congratulate themselves that 

 the "hard-pan'" of ornithological nomenclature has at last been 

 reached, so far as the species here treated are concerned. 



In his " Excursus on the Names of Shrikes" (pp. 537-542), the 

 author reviews, in a manner peculiai'ly his own, manj^ points of scien- 

 tific and etymological interest, and restores to the genus the Linnaean 

 name of Lanius, on what are probably indisputable grounds. Our 

 species of Shrikes, therefore, will in future stand as Lanius, instead of 

 Collurio or Collyrio, as most modern works have them. The generali- 

 zation, on page 200, that " migration holds species true ; localization 



* In this connection, we note the absence of any reference to the synonymy and biblio- 

 graphy of Regulus cuvieri. Pants airicapUlus (proper), Par us carolinensis, Parus Jiudsoni- 

 cus, I'arus rufesc.ens., Sitta carolinensi.s, and Sitta pusilla. The first one hundred and 

 ninety-two pages of the work, in which these should occur, were printed, as we are told 

 in the preface, in 1876, '"for publication in a different connection," and the scope of the 

 work afterward enlarged to comprehend the whole of Xorth America. This will proba- 

 bly account for what might at first glance appear to be an oversight on the part of the 

 author. It is to be hoped, however, that the publication of the remaining portion of the 

 work will afford an opportunity to rectify these omissions. 



