390 Recent Literature. [jute 
Mrs. Bailey’s ‘Handbook of Birds of the Western United States.’ 1 
— The popularity of Mrs. Bailey’s standard work on the birds of our 
western states is attested by the fact that a seventh revised edition has 
just been published by the Riverside Press. Since the appearance of the 
fourth edition, which was noticed in these columns in January, 1915, 
additions appear in the list of species to be added, while the list of proposed 
changes in the A. O. U. Check-List published in ‘ The Auk’ for October, 
1916, are printed in so far as they apply to western birds. The ‘ List of 
Birds of the Western United States in the Nomenclature of the 1910 
Check-List ’ now appears under the caption ‘ Revised Ranges of Western 
Birds,’ and contains additional matter. There are also many additional 
titles in the supplement to the list of ‘ Books of Reference.’ 
All of these additions tend to bring the work up to date and give us the 
very latest information on the birds of the west, a region in which bird 
students are increasing at a wonderful rate, while its avifauna is steadily 
becoming of greater interest to eastern bird students owing to the increas- 
ing travel in the west during recent years.— W. S. 
Dr. Casey A. Wood on the Fundus Oculi of Birds. ?— There are 
many points in the anatomy and physiology of birds upon which the 
ornithologist needs light but which he finds himself unfitted to investigate 
because of his lack of technical training in these special lines of research. 
This is of course perfectly natural as ornithology like any other branch of 
systematic zodlogy is so broad a subject and so intricately related to 
various special lines of investigation that no one man could possibly speak 
authoritatively upon all its aspects. It is fortunate therefore that special- 
ists upon anatomy, physiology, etc., who lay no claim to being ornitholo- 
gists, are willing from time to time to give us the benefit of their special 
training, and to elaborate the particular line of research to which they have 
devoted their lives, in its relationship to ornithology. 
In studying the systematic relationship of any group of birds or the 
behaviour of a certain species, the ornithologist may have occasion to: 
consider the power of hearing or sight, but without the special or technical 
training possessed by the medical practitioner who has specialized upon. 
these subjects his deductions are likely to be faulty if not absolutely absurd. 
With the results of the specialists’ researches before him however, he can 
make use of data on these topics without danger of error. 
One special work of the kind we have in mind which might be mentioned 
1 Handbook of Birds of the Western United States. Seventh edition, revised. Houghton 
and Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1917. Price $3.50 net. 
2 The Fundus Oculi of Birds Especially as viewed by the Ophthalmoscope. A Study in 
Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. By Casey Albert Wood. Illustrated by 145 
drawings in the text; also by sixty-one colored paintings prepared for this work by Arthur 
W. Head, F.Z.S. London. Chicago, Lakeside Press. 1917. 4to, pp. 1-181. Price, 
until March 15, $12.50. After that date $15. H. A. Fox, publisher, Chicago Savings. 
Bank Bldg., State and Madison Sts., Chicago, II. 
