340 Notes and News. [j^^ 



late been offered to the public as popular natural history. The colored 

 plates and the photogravures are of a high grade of excellence, and the 

 typography and general make-up of the work leave little ground for criti- 

 cism. 



The plan of treatment is as follows : (1) bibliographic references, restricted 

 apparently to works which contain illustrations of the species under con- 

 sideration; (2) vernacular names of the species, as known in the various 

 countries comprised v^ithin its range; (3) description of the plmnage, in- 

 cluding its variations due to sex and age; (4) geographical distribution, 

 with a map shomng both summer and winter ranges; (4) life-history. 

 The photogravure plates illustrate various attitudes of the bird assumed 

 in courtship or in play, and also nestlings or young birds, and add greatly 

 to the interest of the work. The account of the Grasshopper Warbler 

 includes a.long discussion of the theory of 'sexual selection,' for which his 

 intimate studies of wild birds afford no support. He finds that the 'dis- 

 plays' of the male are by no means confined to the period of courtship. 

 Under the Cliiff-chaff the author discusses what he terms the "law of uni- 

 formity" in the behavior of birds, which "seems to extend to all the ac- 

 tivities, whether referable to instinct or habit," but which does not 

 prohibit variation in indi\ddual cases. — J. A, A. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Leslie Alexander Lee, an Associate of the American Ornithologists' 

 Union, died at Portland, Maine, May 20, 1908, in the 56th year of his age. 

 He was professor of biology and geology at Bowdoin College since 1881, 

 and at the time of his death was president of the Maine Ornithological 

 Society and of the Portland Society of Natural History. Professor Lee 

 was born at Woodstock, Vemiont, September 24, 1852. He was the son 

 of John Stebbins Lee, the first president of St. Lawrence University, 

 Canton, New York, from which the younger Lee was graduated in 1872. 

 He took a post-graduate course at Harvard, and went to Bowdoin College 

 as instructor in natural history in 1876. He was connected for a time with 

 the United States Fish Commission, and was chief of the scientific staff 

 of the 'Albatros' on a collecting voyage for the Smithsonian Institution 

 through the Strait of Magellan and up the Pacific coast to San Francisco 

 in 1887. In 1891 he organized and directed the Bowdoin College Expedi- 

 tion to Labrador. He was also, at the time of his death, State Geologist 

 of Maine, and Chief of the Maine Topographical Survey Commission, 

 which he organized. His numerous scientific papers relate mainly to 

 marine biology. He was, however, deeply interested in ornithology, tak- 



