JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOI.OGICAL .SOCIETY. II 



talked it over. To me, watching, if it was not a pre-arranged race, 

 I do not know what it was. They all displayed ever\^ manner of 

 interest and excitement, of delight and curiosity, as plainly as bird 

 manners could display them, and, although who can say what a 

 bird ma}^ be thinking about under such circumstances, it would ap- 

 pear in our own thought as a carefully discussed and premeditated 

 race. 



I was pleased to note the past June quite a few Wood Ducks in 

 the vicinity of Grand lyake Stream and elsewhere in Washington 

 County, evidently breeding, although in August, on the trip above 

 mentioned, we saw few Ducks of any kind, and even those few were 

 mostly Black Ducks. At Grand Lake Stream village there is a 

 very prosperous colony of Purple Martins, and Mr. Rose, of "Ouan- 

 aniche lyodge," their owner, is taking the best of care to keep them, 

 proposing, I believe, the coming spring, to put up a second large 

 house for their accommodation. There were some twenty or thirty 

 pairs there this spring l^reeding. 



American Birds, by Wiliam L. Finley. 



Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, have recently published a 

 handsome volume, entitled "American Birds Studied and Photo- 

 graphed from Life," by William Lovell Finley, a well-known western 

 ornithologist. The book is profusely illustrated from photographs 

 by Herman T. Bohlman and the author, in fact there are forty-eight 

 full-page half-tones. The interesting articles which are here printed 

 in book form were first published in The Condoj', and it is gratifying 

 to have them in more convenient and permanent shape. They are 

 suited primarily for popular reading, but they contain a great amount 

 of original information regarding the birds studied, valuable to the 

 ornithologist. Among the birds portrayed and pictured are the 



