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Bird - Lore 



of Shoal Lake in 1917-18, and doubtless 

 today, any resemblance to the Shoal Lake 

 he knew in 1901, with a margin of quill- 

 reeds, so wide that in places one could not 

 see open water from the shore of the 

 lake. Since that date, Mr. Taverner writes, 

 the water in the lake has fallen from 8 to 

 10 feet and the shallow margins in which 

 the quill-reeds grew and countless Coots, 

 Grebes, and Yellow-headed Blackbirds 

 nested are now "broad reaches white with 

 alkali crystals." Mr. Taverner adds: "Of 

 the vast numbers of birds that once 

 threaded the mazes of the marsh, practi- 

 cally none remain but the few that are 

 restricted to the borders of the rapidly 

 disappearing pools back from the shore." 

 The transformation is as sad as it is 

 interesting. — F. M. C. 



The Ornithological Magazines 



The Auk. — The first thirty-two pages 

 of the January number comprise 'In 

 Memoriam: William Brewster,' by Henry 

 W. Henshaw, followed by other articles 

 dealing with Mr. Brewster. His photo- 

 graph, reproduced as Plate I, is excellent, 

 and such of the younger ornithologists as 

 knew Mr. Brewster comparatively little 

 personally will find interest and inspiration 

 in the account of his life. A 'William 

 Brewster Memorial' has been placed in the 

 hands of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, the income from an established 

 fund of $5, 000 to be used in recognition of 

 "the most important work relating, in 

 whole or in part, to the birds of the 

 Western Hemisphere," with the 'Brewster 

 Memorial Medal' and an honorarium. 

 We have here some slight tribute by 

 American ornithologists to the passing of a 

 great leader. 



In 'Sequestration Notes,' by J. Grinnell, 

 from observations of the Audubon Warb- 

 ler and Ruby-crowned Kinglet, it is con- 

 cluded that their call-notes functioned 

 to keep the birds apart, give each indi- 

 vidual monopoly in a certain feeding-area, 

 to the common advantage. Many field 

 students will call to mind similar observa- 

 tions, and the conclusion is so logically 



drawn as to carry conviction. It may only 

 be questioned whether such calls, per se, 

 have special 'sequestration' significance, 

 <ir whether the ordinary call-note, with a 

 more general advertisement-identification 

 significance, has sequestration value in 

 some cases. At the very least we have here 

 a tangible hypothesis, a valuable asset in 

 pursuing the elusive subject of bird- 

 language. In 'The Occult Senses in Birds,' 

 H. H. Beck suggests a food-finding (ex- 

 ample Vultures) and mate-finding sense 

 similar to the homing sense, already the 

 subject of so much interesting study and 

 speculation. There is obvious advantage 

 in designating certain inexplicable phe- 

 nomena by these terms until further 

 analysis of them is possible. 



In 'In Memoriam: Lyman Belding' 

 (illustrated by a photograph, Plate III), 

 by A. K. Fisher, quotations from a manu- 

 script autobiographical sketch which Beld- 

 ing completed shortly before his death, 

 are of great interest. He was eighty-eight 

 years old at the time of his death, and his 

 memories of wild life in the early days 

 are correspondingly valuable. 



There is the usual quota of papers more 

 or less faunal in nature: from the Cats- 

 kill Mountains, Cobb (descriptive appre- 

 ciation of a rich bird country) ; from Texas, 

 Griscom (critical notes supplementing 

 earlier published lists); from Colorado, 

 Lincoln (an annotated list of the birds of 

 the Clear Creek district); from South 

 Carolina, Wayne (remarks of interest on 

 a few species). Farley presents details of 

 the life of Sanderling and Red-backed 

 Sandpiper while wintering unusually far 

 north, at Plymouth. Mass. 'Bachmun's 

 Warbler breeding in Alabama,' by Ernest 

 G. Holt, is accompanied by a photograph 

 of nest and eggs of this rare bird. A 

 critical stud}' of the races of the Canada 

 Goose leads J. D. Figgins to suggest thai 

 a large (canadensis) and small (minima) 

 species alone be recognized, other speci- 

 mens to be considered as hybrids. New 

 spe< Les and subspecies are described by 

 Cory, a race of the Killdeer breeding 

 in Peru, by Chapman. We may now con- 

 sider our Killdeer the northern representa- 



