i886.] Recent Literature. 1-9 



Part til. 'Conclusions' (pp. 333-35S), relates mdinlj to a discussion of 

 the component elements of the ornis of Kamtschatka and, incidentally, of 

 the Commander Islands, and consists of a series of 'Tables' (numbered I 

 to XX), showing the faunal relations of the various Kamtschatkan species, 

 genera, etc., with explanatory and analytical text. The bird fauna of the 

 Commander Islands is essentially Kamtschatkan, only eleven species oc- 

 curring there which are eitlier American or peculiar to the Islands. Of 

 the Kamtschatkan species 2.^.3 per cent are 'Circumpolar,' 21. i per cent 

 are 'Palsearctic,' 16 per cent are 'Pacific,' 4.6 per cent are 'American,' 5.1 

 per cent 'Siberian.' and 30.9 per cent 'East Asiatic or peculiar.' The 

 peculiarities of distribution displaced by certain species is the subject of 

 much interesting comment. 



The work closes with a sketch map of the region under consideration, a 

 list of illustrations, and a verv carefuUv prepared index. — ^J. A. A. 



Torrey's Birds in the Bush.'* — Under this characteristic title. Mr. Tor- 

 rey has presented the public with a collection of his field studies in bird 

 life, most of them previously published in the 'Atlantic' or other literary 

 magazines. The author is thoroughly in sympathy witii the feathered 

 denizens of field and wood, — a bird-lover of the ardent sort. His pages 

 show that he is even more than this — a keen, discriminating field natural- 

 ist, able to correctly identify his birds — to a fair degree an ornithologist, 

 with much book-knowledge of birds, as well as more than a speaking ac- 

 quaintance with the birds themselves. He not only sees well, and listens 

 well, but is able to tell felicitously what he has seen and heard. While the 

 ornithologist will find in these pages much that is not new to him he will 

 be interested and entertained by the manner of the telling, not a little that 

 has never been so well told before, and not unfrequenth' features of bird- 

 life delineated that have not before found their way into print. In short, 

 the book is a delightful sei'ies of field studies, intermixed with a little mor- 

 alizing from the bird point of view, seldom monotonous, and ne\er wear- 

 isome, — a book which not only bird-lovers, but most ornithologists will 

 find entertaining and instructive. An indication of the character of the 

 contents maj' be derived from the following list of the titles of the Chap- 

 ters : 'On Boston Common'; -Bird-Songs'; 'Character in Feathers'; 'In 

 the White Mountains'; 'Phillida and Coridon'; 'Scraping Acquaintance': 

 'Minor Songsters"; -Winter Birds about Boston'; 'A Bird-Lover's April': 

 •An Owl's Head Holiday'; -A Month's Music.'— J. A. h. 



Holders Catalogue of the Birds of Lynn. Mass. — Dr. Holder's original 

 Catalogue! was published in December, 1846, as 'Number I' of the 'Pub- 

 lications of the Lynn Natural History Society,' and is therefore one of the 

 earliest of the -local lists.' It has been long out of print, and practically 



* Birds in the Bush. By Bradford Torrev. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin and Com- 

 |jany, 1885. 12 nio., pp. 300. 



t Catalogue of the Birds noticed in the vicinity of Lynn, Mass., during the years 

 i844-'5-'6. By j. B. Holder. 8vo., pp. 8. No date. [Nov., 1885.] 



