358 Recent Literature. ewe 
first description is the original description upon which a name must stand, 
and in these days there is absolutely no excuse for such careless practises. 
When so much time has to be taken up in going over the imperfect work 
of the older writers it is hard to understand why present day authors 
persist in perpetrating the same sort of crimes against taxonomy, to trouble 
future generations. ‘The Auk’ has no personal feeling in such cases, but 
is doing its utmost to discourage careless systematic work and to persuade 
all journals to insist_upon full and adequate diagnoses of new forms.— W. S. 
‘Cassinia’.'— With the current issue of the Delaware Valley Ornitholo- 
gical Club’s annual, Dr. Spencer Trotter assumes the duties of editor. 
The high type of the publication both as to typography and character of 
contents is fully maintained and both the editor and the Club are to be 
congratulated upon the appearance of this, the sixteenth annual number. 
The opening article is by Dr. Trotter and is an interesting biography of 
Wm. P. Turnbull, author of that beautiful little brochure on the ‘ Birds of 
East Pennsylvania and New Jersey’ which Dr. Coues refers to as “‘ the 
best printed treatise on American birds extant ’’ and in which his aman- 
uensis found “‘ no typographical error after close scrutiny.” 
Henry W. Fowler, the president of the Club, presents a list of ‘Some 
Rare or Unusual Birds in Upper Philadelphia’, supplementary to a pre- 
vious list published in ‘ Cassinia’ fourteen years ago. 
An excellent account of the nesting of the Least Bittern is furnished by 
Julian K. Potter, who fortunately studied the habits of the birds and devel- 
opment of the young, and photographed the nest at various stages, thereby 
adding to our knowledge of the species to an extent that could not be done 
by the mere collecting of the set of eggs. 
Thomas D. Burleigh contributes a list of breeding birds from Samar, 
Clinton Co., Pa. 
The usual ‘Report on Bird Migration’ and ‘Abstract of the Proceedings of 
the Club’ close the number. Those possessing this issue should make sure 
that reprinted pages have been substituted for pp. 27-30 which contained 
errors in the migration tables.— W. S. 
Shelton’s Land Birds of West Central Oregon.?— In this well’ 
prepared bulletin Mr. Shelton presents a list of 143 species with the status 
of each in the district under consideration, which is nearly coincident with 
the boundaries of Lake County. The method of treatment follows that 
of Dr. Joseph Grinnell’s distributional list of California birds with the 
synonyms omitted. An introduction discusses the life zones of the area, 
1 Cassinia, Proceedings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, of Philadelphia. 
1916. Issued March, 1917. pp. 1-58. 
2A Distributional List of the Land birds of Western Oregon. By Alfred C. Shelton. 
University of Oregon Bulletin, New Series, Vol. XIV, No. 4. January, 1917. S8vo, pp. 
1-51, figs. 1-10. 
