40 



THE OSPREY. 



Ificcent literature. 



L!/6- Histories of North At)icrican Birds, from 

 the Parrots to the Grackles, with special refer- 

 ence to their breeding- habits and egg's. By 

 Charles Bendire, Captain and Brevet Major, U. 

 S. A. With seven lithog-raphic plates. Special 

 Bulletin, U. S. Nat. Mus. Washington: Gov- 

 ernment Printing Office. 



The second volume of Maj. Bendire's mag- 

 nificent Life Histories of North American Birds 

 has just been issued by the U. S. National Mu- 

 seum. It is of course a companion volume to 

 the first, which was published in 1892, and 

 forms a large quarto volume of 518 pages and 

 seven lithographic plates of eggs The first 

 volume covered the Gallinaceous birds and 

 birds of prey, while the one before us begins 

 with the now nearly extinct Carolina Paroquet 

 and ends with the Grackles, thus covering the 

 Trogans, Woodpeckers, Goatsuckers, Swifts, 

 Humming- Birds, Coting-as, Flycatchers, Larkb, 

 Crows, Jays, Magpies, Starlings, Blackbirds 

 and Orioles. The third volume, the prepara- 

 tion of which is well under way, will conse- 

 quently begin with the Evening Grosbeak and 

 continue the passerine series. 



As Maj. Bendire stated in his first preface 

 these volumes contain very much more than a 

 mere description of nests and eggs; they are in 

 fact complete life histories with the migratory 

 and breeding ranges as well as the food of each 

 species. The author has had a wide field ex- 

 perience, and this together with a large corre- 

 spondence has afi'orded him an invaluable 

 amount of original material on which to draw. 

 He has however not hesitated to quote at 

 length from the published accounts of well- 

 known observers whenever they supplement 

 his own observations or in cases where he had 

 not met with the species. 



The titnes are unquestionably ripe for the 

 production of a work of this character. The 

 preliminary work on North American oology by 

 Dr. T. M. Brewer, also prepared under the aus- 

 pices of the Smithsonian Institution, was pub- 

 lished in 18.57, but was discontinued from lack 

 of material. The more general work of Baird, 

 Brewer and Ridgway issued in 1874 was the 

 last attempt at a complete presentation of the 

 life histories of our birds. But ir, the twenty 

 years since that time the study of ornithology 

 has been greatly stimulated, with the result of 

 accumulating an enormous mass of valuable 

 material, as this is quite widely scattered in 

 journals, reports, faunal papers, etc., and it re- 

 quired a careful sifting process to exclude the 

 obviously unworthy and to place in more prom- 

 inent form the authentic. That Maj. Bendire 

 has performed this task in a thoroughly satis- 

 factory manner, must be acknowledged by all 

 who turn the pag-es of his volume. The style 

 is easy and pleasing and the habits and peculi- 

 arities of our birds made exceedingly inter- 

 esting. 



The descriptions of the nests and eggs is of 

 cour.se especially complete, and is based almost 

 entirely on material in the U. S. National Mu- 

 seum collection. This collection has been 

 grfatU^ enriched since the publication of the 

 first volume by the donation of the magnificent 



private collection of Dr. W. Iv Ralph number- 

 ing'- over seven thousand specimens. The plates 

 of eggs are from drawings by Mr. J. L. Ridg- 

 way. The reproduction is if any things better 

 than in the first volume. 



Notwithstanding the fact that the study of 

 our birds has been prosecuted so vigorously of 

 late, there is still good work to be done. Thus 

 it is noted in the volume before us, there are 

 quite a number of species and sub-species of 

 which the nidification is unknown. Strangely 

 enough there are no absolutely authentic eggs 

 of the Carolina Paroquet deposited in a wild 

 state and even the nesting site — whether in 

 hollow trees or in nests on tjranches — is still in 

 dispute. The same may be said of the egg'-s of 

 the Trogan, Maynard's and the Siberian 

 Cuckoos, St. Lucas Woodpeckers and many 

 others. F. H. Knowi^ton. 



Bird-Band fuhocs. By Charles Conrad Ab- 

 bott, M. D., with illustrations by William 

 Everett Cram, Phila., J. B. Lippincott Co. 

 Cloth, 12mo, pp. 270, $2.00. 



This book of ten chapters, or essays, each 

 narrating its given part of bird-life, can be 

 read by the mere lover of nature or the orni- 

 thologist, and neither can fail to enjoy Dr. Ab- 

 bott's mode of telling us of the birds. He loves 

 birds, whether commonplace or rare, stupid or 

 entertaining, gentle or vicious, large or small; 

 but he has his favorites. One surmises the 

 Quaker strain in his nature at once when he 

 honors the demvtre sparrows with first place in 

 his book. "It is the unobtrusive, overlooked, 

 and underrated birds that claim ni)' closest re- 

 gard," he says. It is these he listens for first 

 when he "stands tiptoe upon the edge of the 

 mornings and overlooks an unawakened world." 

 The chirping'- chewink is to him more than the 

 rose-breasted grosbeak with its wonderful song, 

 yet he takes the opportunit3' to have a little 

 fun with the Ouaker fanaticism that frowns 

 upon music. He imagines that the early 

 Quakers must have looked with approval upon 

 the thrush's snuff-brown coat, but must have 

 frowned at the spotted waist-coat and certain- 

 ly must have felt like criticising providence 

 when the bird flooded their new-cleared fields 

 with ravishing music. 



"To me a swamp means freedom." he says, 

 "It means nature without man's interference; 

 and when we get as close as pos.Sible to the 

 earth and as far as possible from mankind we 

 begin to breathe, and one b}' one the scales 

 drop from our eyes." 



No one can fail t(j enjoy hearing Dr. Ab- 

 bott lead the old miller on to tell us of the 

 "quoks" and of the "devil-diver" who he says, 

 "has side-wiskers and a smart way of lookin" 

 at you that showed it was up to snuft." Per- 

 haps the booming'- of the Am. Bittern was never 

 no more aptly discribed. "There is no sound in 

 nature so hopelessly beyond discription as the 

 booming of the Bittern." 



The illustrations are of numerous line-draw- 

 ings, which, with some exceptions, are g-ood. 



W. A. J. 



