25oofe ^etosi antr CtebietDs; 



In the Wilds of South America. By 

 Leo E. Miller. Chas. Scribner's Sons, 

 New York, 1918. 8vo. 424 pp.; colored 

 frontispiece; 48 full-page illustrations 

 from photographs, and 2 maps. 



This is a narrative of travel and explora- 

 tion in the less-accessible part of our sister 

 continent, incident to a study of its avi- 

 fauna by the American Museum of Natural 

 History. The narrative follows the course 

 of nearly six years' almost continuous ex- 

 ploration into the tropical Jungles of the 

 Amazon, Paraguay, Orinoco, and others of 

 South America's master rivers, and to the 

 frigid heights of the snow-crowned Andes. 

 The value to science of Mr. Miller's work 

 is familiar to every student who has fol- 

 lowed Dr. Chapman's recent publication 

 on South American birds. The present 

 volume is an interesting record of achieve- 

 ment which will prove useful in many ways. 

 It gives a detailed, clean-cut picture of 

 conditions, which will be of service to 

 an^' future traveler. The author's per- 

 sonalit}', as revealed by various physical 

 and human vicissitudes of an unnkown 

 country, should be of interest to the in- 

 experienced explorer. 



We have all of us mental pictures of the 

 strange and beautiful birds of South Am- 

 erican jungles. Comparatively few of us 

 will be so favored as to know them in na- 

 ture. We see them as on a Japanese screen, 

 suspended against an intangible back- 

 ground, and descriptions of conditions 

 under which they are met with have much 

 interest; for instance, the paragraphs 

 relative to bird-life on the Rio Sucio in 

 Chapter IX. The author here speaks of 

 "an interesting provision of nature where- 

 by three families of birds frequently found 

 in the same locality are able to obtain 

 their sustenance. They arc the parrots, 

 trogons, and toucans, all of which feed 

 iiI)on fruit, each seeming to secure its food 

 in a different manner. The zygodactyl feet 

 of the parrots enable them to climb out to 

 the tip of fruit-laden branches and to 



^ling to them in any position while feed- 

 ing; toucans, endowed with an enormously 

 elongated bill are able to reach a long dis- 

 tance for a coveted morsel, which is grasped 

 between the tip of the mandibles and 

 tossed back with an upward jerk of the 

 head, to be swallowed; a trogon has a very 

 short beak and neck, and the delicate feet 

 are not adapted to climbing, but the wings 

 of the bird are so constructed as to enable 

 it to hover, from which position the fruit 

 it desires may be snapped off the stem, when 

 the bird returns to its perch to devour it." 

 Although obviously intended for popu- 

 lar reading and full of human interest, it 

 is to be regretted that the book is without 

 an index which would have enhanced its 

 reference value. It is illustrated from 

 photographs of the country and natives 

 and with a colored frontispiece of the 

 Cock-of-the-rock by Fuertes. — J. T. X. 



Four Years in the White North. By 

 Donald B. MacMillan. Harper Bros., 



413 pp., illustrated by photographs. 



This is a narrative of an Arctic E.xpe- 

 dition in search of the supposed 'Crocker 

 Land.' Its scene of operation was north- 

 western Greenland and the land to the 

 west thereof. An appendix of nine pages, 

 which takes up 35 species of birds from 

 this section of the Arctic, has much more 

 ornithological interest than would be sup- 

 posed from its brevity. We read with in- 

 terest as regards the Fulmar that, "from 

 a rest upon the water this bird spreads its 

 wings and dives fully beneath the surface 

 to grasp food." This is a method of feed- 

 ing rare among Petrels, and which is, we 

 believe, sometimes paralleled by species of 

 the Southern Hemis|)here. There are 

 frequent references to birds in the narra- 

 tive, and photographs of a flock of Little 

 Auks and of the nest of the Knot — ^one 

 showing a set of three eggs, the other the 

 brooding adult — deserve special mention. 

 "Contrary to the general belief, this bird 

 lays its eggs not near the shore, but 



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