42 



Bird -Lore 



The value of birds as the distributors 

 of seeds is also described, the Robin, Cedar 

 Waxwing, Blue Jay, Crow, Pine Grosbeak, 

 and Crossbills* rendering good service in 

 this connection. 



The part that the birds of prey play in 

 forest preservation is shown in their de- 

 struction of the rodents so injurious to 

 young trees. 



The life-like, colored portraits by Fuer- 

 tes of many of the species mentioned 

 add greatly to the attractiveness of Pro- 

 fessor Beal's paper and increase the effec- 

 tiveness of the information it contains. — 

 F. M. C. 



The Ornithological Magazines 



The Warbler. — The third volume of 

 'The Warbler,' which appears as an 

 annual bulletin of the museum of its 

 editor, John Lewis Childs, is a pamphlet 

 of 56 pages, illustrated with a number of 

 half-tones and a colored frontispiece of 

 the eggs of the Santa Catalina Partridge. 



Among other articles this publication 

 contains 'The Breeding of the Arctic 

 Towhee' and the 'Rock Wren a Cliff 

 Dweller,' by P. B. Peabody; 'Field Notes 

 from the Upper Penobscot,' by J. W. 

 Clayton; 'Breeding of Harlan's Hawk in 

 Iowa,' by Charles R. Keyes, and 'Long 

 Island Bird Notes,' by John Lewis Childs. 

 There are also two papers by John 

 Bachman; the first, entitled 'Notes on 

 Some Experiments Made on the Buzzard 

 of Carolina — Calthartes aura and C. 

 atratus' , contains a record of the experi- 

 ments on which Bachman's paper on 

 the 'Sense of Smell in Buzzards,' published 

 in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History 

 for 1834, was based. It is here stated to 

 be "from original undated manuscript," 

 but further details as to its history would 

 be of interest. 



The second paper is Bachman's well- 

 known 'Essay on the Migration of Birds 

 in North America,' which appeared in 

 Silliman's 'American Journal of Science' 

 (1836, pages 81 to 100), but is well worth 

 republishing, though a reference to the 

 original place of publication would have 

 been desirable. — F. M. C. 



The Condor. — 'The Condor' for No- 

 vember, 1907, contains several notes of 

 unusual interest on the habits and dis- 

 tribution of Western birds. In the opening 

 article, which is illustrated by two half- 

 tones, Florence Merriam Bailey describes 

 the nesting of the White-throated Swifts 

 at Capistrano, California, where seven 

 nests were located in cracks in the walls 

 of the ruins of the old Spanish mission. 

 The White-throated Swift usually nests 

 high up in the most inaccessible cliffs and 

 the finding of its nest only a few feet from, 

 the ground in the walls of a building is a 

 remarkable, if not a unique discovery. 

 Of almost equal interest is the record 

 of the breeding of the Cassin Sparrow 

 {Peucaa cassini) in eastern Colorado. 

 Under the title 'A New Breeding Bird 

 for Colorado,' L. J. Hershey and R. B. 

 Rockwell describe the finding of the nest 

 in July, 1907, at Barr, about twenty 

 miles northeast of Denver. The species is 

 common in central and western Kansas, 

 and in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, 

 but has been found only once before in 

 Colorado — a single specimen taken by 

 E. R. Warren, in May two or three years 

 ago, near Springfield, Baca county, in 

 the southeastern part of the state. The 

 present record not only fills in a supposed 

 gap in the range, but carries the known 

 distribution of the species 150 miles west 

 of the Kansas boundary. Still another 

 article to which special attention may be 

 called is that by John E. Thayer on 'Eggs 

 of the Rosy Gull.' Mr. Thayer figures 

 an adult male, a young bird in the down, 

 and four eggs of the Rosy Gull obtained 

 from M. S. A. Bauturlin, a Russian orni- 

 thologist, who collected them in June, 

 1905, in the delta of the Kolyma river, 

 in northeastern Siberia. The Ross, or 

 Rosy Gull {Rhodostethia rosea) is one of 

 the rarest of the Gulls. Until recently 

 very little was known of its distribution 

 or habits, as it is an arctic species whose 

 range extends into high latitudes. 



Brief notes on the birds observed during 

 a trip through the Redwoods of Santa 

 Cruz county, California, 'From Boulder 

 to the Sea' are given by Milton S. Ray; 



