i 



310 Recent Literature. Vl^s 



that we on this side of the water are not 'out in the cold' when it comes 

 to the consideration of the North American Tetraonidse. Mr. Grant gives 

 a list of such of the "new species and subspecies of American Game-birds," 

 described since 1893, as he does not approve, "with remarks on and iden- 

 tifications of those which are not considered valid by the writer, and with 

 his reasons for proposing to suppress them." 



The first on the list is Lagopus leucurus aUipcfens Osgood, of which 

 he says : " I have compared three adult males in autumn plumage from 

 Colorado (one being from Blaine's Peak, the typical locality of L. 1. altipe- 

 tens) with two males and a female in autumn plumage from the Cascade 

 Mountains, and find them absolutel_v identical." This disposes, from 

 Mr. Grant's point of view, of the whole case of L. I. altipctens, he 

 apparently being quite unaware that his comparison of specimens from 

 Colorado and the Cascade Mountains has no bearing on the case. The 

 status of the Alaska form, which is the question at issue, is not 

 touched. A comparison of a large series in the American Museum from 

 the Kenai Peninsula with other comparable material from Colorado 

 shows a very striking difference between the two forms, both in size and 

 coloration, a difference that probably Mr. Grant could not fail to recog- 

 nize if he had the same material. In all probability the birds from the 

 Cascade Mountains and Colorado are not different, and so far as we 

 know no difference between them has been claimed. We doubt, also, 

 whether birds from latitude 54° in the Rocky Mountains, the type region 

 of L. leucurus Swainson, would prove separable from the Colorado bird, 

 judging from winter specimens from Alberta. In other words, Mr. 

 Osgood should probabl}' have named the Alaska form instead of that from 

 Colorado. So much then for Mr. Grant's first case on his list. 



The second case is that of Canachites canadensis and its subspecies, 

 none of which, of course, Mr. Grant admits. The A. O. U. Committee 

 has recently gone over the subject with care, with abundant material, and 

 found no difficulty in recognizing three forms (see this number of 'The 

 Auk,' pp. 317, 318), in spite of "all the alleged differences in plumage 

 being fully accounted for by season or age, and being in no waj' depend- 

 ent on locality," as shown by Mr. Grant's material. As the amount of 

 material examined in this case is large, and the same conclusions have 

 been reached by several independent investigators outside of the A. O. U. 

 Committee, we must account for this discrepancy of opinion between Mr. 

 Grant and his American confreres on the basis of a radical difference in 

 the point of view from which the subject is approached by the parties in 

 controversy. In fact, we could expect from Mr. Grant no other conclu- 

 sion, when we recall his position in relation to the Bonasa umhellus 

 group (Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., XXII, p. 87). 



His third, and the last case we have space in this connection to notice, 

 is the ' Turkey question,' where Mr. Grant differs from American orni- 

 thologists both as regards points of nomenclature and the admission of 

 both species and subspecies. While he admits two species and two sub- 



