1 92 1.] Recently published Ornithological Works. 337 



who was for some time stationed on Laysaii Island^ an 

 outlier of the Hawaiian Islands, gives us some information 

 on the nesting- haljits of two rare Petrels — Pterodroma 

 hypoleuca and Oceanodroma tristraini. 



As showing the effects of untimely weather, Mr. E. R. 

 Warren tells us of the effects of a snow-storm at Colorado 

 Springs on the 5th of May, when eight inches of snow 

 covered the ground and did much damage to the migrants, 

 who were then arriving and passing m great numbers. 



An obituary notice of a young collector, JNIr. M. P. 

 Anderson, who accidentally met with his death in a ship- 

 yard at Oakland, near San Francisco, in February 1919, 

 where he was patriotically doing war-work, is of interest to 

 English naturalists, as it was Mr. Anderson who was chosen 

 some years ago to conduct the collecting expedition of the 

 Duke of Bedford in eastern Asia, and all the birds and 

 mammals then collected are now in the British Museum. 



The volume for 1919 contains descriptions of two new 

 races, both from Lower California, by Mr. H. Oberholser — 

 Junco oreganiis pontills and Fipilo fuscus aripoVms. 



The 1920 volume contains three articles of general in- 

 terest by Mr. A. Wetmore. In the first of these he suggests 

 that the plug of feathers nearly always found in the pyloric 

 diverticulum of the stomach of the Grebes acts as a strainer 

 to prevent the passage of larger particles of bone or Hsh- 

 scales from the stomach into the intestines. In another 

 paper, as the result of observations on a young Great Blue 

 Heron, he believes that the mysterious powder-down patches 

 in the pelvic and pectoral regions of Herons and some other 

 birds are used by the younger birds to oil and dress the 

 contour feathers of the body, especially as the uropygial 

 gland, often used later in life, develops slowly, and does not 

 become functional till subsequently. 



Mr. Wetmore's third article deals with the wing-claw in 

 the Swifts. Out of some 48 species belonging to the genera 

 examined, he found the claw absent only in a few species of 

 Callocalia, though often minute and rudimentary, and 

 obviously of no functional importance. In the genus 



