iS86.] Recent Literature. "^Q"? 



in the nasal tubes just mentioned), and, as already hinted, they 

 may prove to be merely the dark and light extremes of a species 

 subject to dichromatism. If really distinct from each other, as 

 both unmistakably are from y^.Jisheri^ the three birds furnish a 

 remarkable case, viz. : that of three closely related species, the 

 habits and distribution of which are almost wholly unknown, and 

 each of which is at present represented by only a single specimen. 

 To the species just described it is not even possible to ascribe a 

 provisional habitat, its occurrence in the interior of New York 

 being obviously accidental. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



The A. O. U. Code and Check-List of North American Birds.* Few scien- 

 tific books of recent years have been awaited with as much interest as this 

 'Check-List' of birds and its accompanying 'Code.' To those interested 

 in systematic ornithology, the work is, of course, of the highest impor- 

 tance, as giving an authoritative settlement — so far as authority can settle 

 anything in science — of the much-vexed questions in bird nomenclature. 

 But to the systematic workers in other departments of Zoology, and even 

 to botanists, its interest is scarcely less great. 



For we who work in other fields are very willing to recognize the fact 

 that the great questions which underlie all systematic nomenclature 

 must be first met and settled by the ornithologists. The abundance and 

 attractiveness of birds and the ease with which they may be collected and 

 studied have combined to render ornithology one of the best cultivated 

 of all departments of science. In spite of a good deal of amateur work, 

 which, in one way or another, gets published, it is, I think, not too much 

 to say that in all the various matters which make up the ground-work of 

 systematic science — in the discrimination of species and varieties, in the 

 study of the relations of these groups to each other, and to their environ- 

 ment — American ornithology stands at the front of systematic science. 



We may, therefore, in the various stages through which our ornithology has 

 passed, or is passing, read the future history of our own branches of science 

 In many regards, the ornithologists are fighting our battles for us, and we 

 may take advantage of the results won hy their eftbrts. Thus the discus- 

 sions of climatic influences on the characters of species, first serious- 



* The Code of Nomenclature | and | Check-List | of | North American Birds | 

 Adopted by the American Ornithologists' Union | being the Report of the Com- 

 mittee of the I Union on Classification and | Nomenclature | — | Zoological Nomen- 

 clature is a means, not an end, of Zoological Science | — | New York | American Orni- 

 thologists' Union | 1886. 8vo, pp. viii -|- 392. 



