THE OSPREY. 



119 



Recent Literature. 



General Notes. 



Mv Studio Neighbors. By W'illiaiii Ilaniilton 

 Gihson. Illustrated by the author. New York and 

 London : Harper & Brothers, 1898. 



A rare combination it is to find in one man a natur- 

 alist, an artist and a writer, all of a high order of 

 merit. It is of little wonder that W. Hamilton Gib- 

 son was so widel) appreciated, and his death deplored. 

 His keen observations of those parts of nature only to 

 be found in ' dry ' discourses in biology, and the birds 

 as well, he vividly clothed in a fascinating literary 

 style and then with a master hand drew as in life that 

 of which he was writing. No other artist could illus- 

 trate his writings as he has done it: his pictures fit 

 the action of his thoughts so closely that ' made to 

 order' illustrations would be tame in comparison. 

 Looking at Gibson's drawings they seem perfection : 

 his picture of the many butterflies, bees and wasps in 

 their setting of rose-bushes, grasses and flowers seems 

 to emit the noises of the buzzing insects and the fra- 

 grance of the spring vegetation. 



In the present beautiful volume Harper & Brothers 

 have republished a series of eight papers as have ap- 

 peared in ' Harper's Magazine.' One of these papers 

 relates to birds. It is entitled The Cuckoos and the 

 Outwitted Cowbird' and is a story of the parasitic 

 nesting of the European Cuckoo and the American 

 Cowbird, and of Cuckoos, European and American, 

 and Cowbirds in general. The writer treats rather 

 sarcastically of the Cuckoo in poetry, and at one place 

 he says: ' ' The poet of romance is prompted to draw 

 on his imagination for his facts, but the poet of nature 

 must first of all be true, and incidentally as beautiful 

 and good as may be ; and a half-truth or a truth with 

 a reservation may be as dangerous as falsehood ' Our 

 common American Cuckoos — the Yellow- and Black- 

 billed species — are not parasitic in nesting, though 

 the flimsy nests they build — ' ' a coarse mesh of sticks" 

 — sometimes will not hold the fledglings, which fall 

 to the ground and perish, "still," as he says, "it is 

 a beginning in the right direction." The story of the 

 American Cowbird is told ; and of the little Yellow 

 Warbler, who, when she finds a large Cowbird's egg 

 in her nest threatening to blight her domestic pros- 

 pects, builds another story to her nest burying the 

 objectionable egg, and thus outwits the Cowbird 

 though she may have to build a three-storied nest, 

 five or six inches in height, to do it. 



When this paper is finished we can hardly refrain 

 from reading the others; they are, by title: 'A Familiar 

 Guest,' 'Door-step Neighbors,' 'A Queer Little 

 Family on the Bittersweet,' 'The Welcome of the 

 Flowers,' 'A Honey-dew Picnic,' 'A Few Native Or- 

 chids and their Insect Sponsors,' and 'The Milk- 

 weed.' We regret that we cannot tell something of 

 each article, but can only recommend the book to 

 our readers. — W. A. J. 



OTHER BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED. 



'Crusoe's Island, a Bird-hunter's Story.' by Frederick .■\. 

 Ober. D. Appleton & Co. 



'Description of New Birds from Mexico.' by E. W. Nelson. 

 Biological Society of Washington. 



' Birds of the Pacific Slope of Los Angeles County,' by Joseph 

 Grinnell, Pasadena Academy of Sciences. 



'Fauna de Costa Rica.' por Cecilio F. Underwood. Primera 

 Exposicion Centroaniericana de Guatemala. 



' Notes on Birds Observed at Jalapa and Las Vigas, Vera 

 Cruz, Mexico,' by Frank M. Chapman. Author's edition; ex- 

 tracted from Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural 

 History. 



'Contributions to Philippine Ornithology,' by Dean C. Wor- 

 cester, A. B.. and Frank S. Bourns, M. D. From Proceedings 

 of the U. S. National Museum. 



'Brush, Sedge, and Stubble,' by Dwight W. Huntington. 

 Part one. The Sportsman's Society, Cincinnati. 



A STRANGE DEATH OF BOB-WHITES. 

 On February 13, while out driving a few miles 

 from town, I saw a covey of about a dozen Bob- 

 whites feeding in a grove. I flushed them and they 

 started off at full speed toward a house about 300 

 feet distant. I was surprised to hear several loud 

 thuds, and investigating, I found that three of the 

 birds had been killed by dashing against the house. 

 This house was white and about 50 feet high. Can 

 anyone explain why they did not avoid it? — J. Row- 

 land Now'ELL, Anderson, S. C. 



[.\nother story of this very remarkable accidental 

 death of quail just comes from Wabash, Ind., through 

 the Cincinnati 'Inquirer.' The story is related by 

 Mrs. Garrison Baer. While in a field adjoining her 

 house she noticed a hawk sailing about over her head, 

 intently gazing at the ground. As it circled nearer a 

 covey of Quail was flushed: the birds, terror stricken, 

 rising swiftly in their mad effort to escape the enemy. 

 The hawk cut ofi retreat on one side and the fright- 

 ened bob-whites turned suddenly and flew with such 

 force against the side of the house that nine of them 

 were killed by the shock. Only two or three man- 

 aged to get away, — Ed.] 



A 'WHITE-WINGED' EAGLE. 



On the 2d of October I saw a Golden Eagle fly over 

 showing a patch of white feathers in each wing, that 

 on the left appearing twice as large as the one on 

 the right. — Charles S. Thompson, Paso A'o/>/i's, Cn/. 



A LARGE SET OF EGGS. 



The very large complement of 7 eggs of the Field 

 Sparrow [Proiiilt's t^niniiuc'iis) was found by the writer 

 on June 6, 1897. — Wyatt A. Kent, East Walling- 



ford, Vl. 



FREEZING TO DEATH (?). 



New Year's Day, four of us spent the day duck- 

 hunting on the San Pedro River and at night camped 

 in an old barn. The night was very cold for this 

 region. About 3 o'clock in the morning one of our 

 party felt something drop on him : on investigation 

 we found it to be a Brewer's Blackbird. The bird 

 died a moment later. We believe that it was frozen 

 to death. — F C. Willard, Tovibstoiie, Aiizona. 



A LOON THAT DESERVED TO LIVE. 



In the New York 'Sun' there has recently been a 

 discussion regarding the well known ability of the 

 Loon to dodge bullet or shot by diving at the flash of 

 the gun We think what one correspondent says 

 under the above title will interest our readers: 



I once watched a man for more than an hour fire 

 repeatedly at a Loon on a pond in Lincoln County, 

 Me., the Loon being frozen in by thin ice, but ha\ing 

 kept a small circular space open by its movements, 

 the ice not being strong enough to sustain the man, 

 and the open space not being large enough to enable 

 the bird to swim and rise, as a Loon cannot rise in 

 flight from a stationary position in the water. The 

 Loon dodged e\ery shot (by divingi, although within 

 easy gunshot range from the shore It was not killed 

 until the next morning, when the ice had become 

 strong enough to permit the man to go close up to 

 the open space and shoot when the Loon came to the 

 surface : but under the circumstances I think the man 

 ought to have been shot instead of the Loon. — W. H. 



PORTEOUS. 



