VoKgXXVj Recent Literature. 93 



Besides, all this has a bad look, prejudicial to the author, who is thus 

 •open to the suspicion of lacking literary experience or of being careless 

 and slipshod in his work, either of which suspicions may do him injustice. 

 If an author adds a bibliography to his paper, it is presumably to place 

 his sources of information at the service of others, and not for the purpose 

 of tantalizing or annoying subsequent investigators. The least one has a 

 right to expect is a full and correct citation, giving both the opening and 

 closing pages, if exceeding a page of two in length; while a line or two of 

 pertinent annotation, where required to make clear the bearing of the 

 paper cited, is a boon future investigators along the same lines will recog- 

 nize with gratitude. 



In closing we wish to say again, that Mr. Beebe's present paper is not 

 the cause, but merely the occasion, for this bit of criticism of indolent or 

 slovenly bibliographers, whose number is unfortunately legion. — J. A. A. 



Braislin's Birds of Long Island, New York.' — Probably no portion of 

 North America of similar area has been the scene of more careful field 

 work in ornithology than Long Island, New York, — a strip of land 

 about 120 miles long by 8 to 18 in breadth, mostly low and little diversi- 

 fied, rarely rising into hills of a 100 feet in altitude along its northern shore. 

 It is separated from the main land on the north by Long Island Sound, and 

 is exposed on its southern front to the broad Atlantic. From the days 

 of Giraud and the elder Lawrence, it has been the favorite resort, not only 

 of gunners in quest of its abundant water-fowl, but of ornithological 

 observers and collectors. A list of some 250 titles appended to Dr. Brais- 

 lin's paper attests the harvest reaped from this fertile field, exploited so 

 energetically by William Dutcher from 1879 to 1904, and by the author of 

 the present paper during the last decade, and by Dwight, Foster, Chap- 

 man, Helm, Howell, the Lawrences, and others at different periods. Dr. 

 Braislin has done well to gather these scattered records into one condensed 

 and consistent whole, citing the dates and authorities for the rarer species, 

 and giving concise statements of the manner of occurrence of the more 

 common ones. The total number of species now recorded is 364; including 

 three introduced species, and various waifs and strays from remote regions, 

 including several from Europe. The list has been most carefully prepared, 

 and its completeness is beyond question. The bibliography is exception- 

 ally well done, the titles and references being fully given, and its value 

 further increased by brief annotations to many of the titles. — J. A. A. 



Finley's ' American Birds.' ^ — Notwithstanding its broad title, Mr. 



> A List of the Birds of Long Island, New York. By WiUiam C. Braislin. At)str. 

 Proc. Linnsean Society of New York, for the year ending March, 1907, pp. 31-123. 

 Also separate. 



2 American Birds | studied and photograplied | from Life | By | William Lovell 

 Finley | Illustrated from photographs by | Herman T. Bohlman | and the Author | 

 ■Charles Scribner's Sons 1 New York 1907 — 8vo, pp. xvi + 256. October, 1907. 



