Book News and Reviews 



199 



suggestion that a life-size cast in bronze 

 be made of this statue and placed in the 

 new Parkway which will pass in front of 

 the Academy. A half-tone plate of the 

 statue illustrates Mr. Stone's article. 



Henry W. Flower's paper on 'Some 

 Local Fish-eating Birds' contains much 

 interesting information concerning the 

 food habits of 25 species of birds. 



In 'The Ovenbird's Call-Song,' Robert 

 Thomas Moore presents an addition to 

 his studies of the songs of American birds. 

 Annotated records of eleven songs or types 

 of songs are presented; but, accurate as 

 they doubtless are, we feel that this 

 method of rendering bird-notes can never 

 make so strong an appeal to one's imag- 

 ination as does such an apt bit of syllabi- 

 fication as Mr. Burroughs' (whose name 

 is consistently misspelled "Borroughs") 

 'Teacher, Teacher, teacher, TEACHER, 

 TEACHER!^ This statement, however, 

 is in no wise intended to detract from the 

 value of Mr. Moore's important studies. 



Samuel N. Rhoads' discovery of 'The 

 Snow Hill Bird-Roost' near his own 

 home shows that the most observant 

 student never gets to the end of the pos- 

 sibilities of even a locally restricted area. 



'A Census of the Turkey Vulture in 

 Delaware,' by Charles J. Pennock, a 

 'Report on the Spring Migration of 1913,' 

 compiled by Witmer Stone, an 'Abstract of 

 the Proceedings of the Delaware Valley 

 Ornithological Club, 1913', 'Club Notes' 

 and Bibliography for 1913, conclude the 

 number. 



We note that the reports of attendance 

 at the regular meetings of the Club read, 

 "Thirty-five members and two visitors 

 present;" "one visitor and twenty-one 

 members present," etc., whereas one 

 member and twenty-one visitors present 

 is a condition which sometimes prevails 

 in allied organizations! — F. M. C. 



Birds of the Thomas County [Ne- 

 braska] Forest Reserve. By John T. 

 ZiMMER, Proceedings Nebraska Ornitho- 

 logical Union, V, 1913, pp. 51-104. 



If the efforts of the United States Forest 

 Reserve are successful, the region in which 



these studies are made will, in due time, 

 be changed from one of treeless, grass- 

 covered prairies and sand-dunes to an 

 area of pine forests. It is a matter of 

 much importance, therefore, to make a 

 study of the avifauna there under existing 

 conditions for comparison with those 

 which will prevail when the hundreds of 

 thousands of pines planted have become 

 large enough to furnish food, shelter and 

 nesting-places for birds. 



In view of the facts that the open nature 

 of the country makes it possible to dis- 

 cover, with comparative ease, the birds 

 inhabiting it and, furthermore, that many 

 of the observations herein recorded were 

 obtained during the nesting season, Mr. 

 Zimmer's paper, which lists 142 species, 

 appears to supply just the kind of basis 

 which will be useful in determining how 

 the character of the bird-life may be 

 affected by the radical change which will 

 occur in the locality it covers. — F. M. C. 



The Ornithological Magazines 



The Auk. — The April number opens 

 with an article entitled 'Among the 

 Birds of the Sudan,' by Mr. J. C. Phillips, 

 who gives us a glimpse of bird-life along 

 the Blue Nile, and illustrates his paper 

 with a color-plate of- a new Night-jar 

 {CaprimulgHS eleanorce). Mr. Phillips also 

 has notes elsewhere on the effect of cold 

 storage on the molt. Mr. E. S. Cameron 

 writes pleasantly of 'The Ferruginous 

 Rough-leg {Archibuleo ferrugineiis) in 

 Montana,' and gives us also some fine 

 pictures of birds and scenery. His anec- 

 dote of how a bird of this species picked 

 up a cat by mistake for a rabbit is an 

 excellent illustration of the present-day 

 phrase 'reaction to stimuli.' An impor- 

 tant contribution to economic ornithology 

 is by Mr. H. C. Bryant on 'Birds as 

 Destroyers of Grasshoppers in California;' 

 wherein tables of figures and percentages 

 are well worth the careful consideration 

 of those interested. 



Dr. R. M. Strong's paper, 'On the 

 Habits and Behavior of the Herring Gull,' 

 etc., is concluded. It might be called an 



