I20 Recetit Literature. L Jan 



ness. This is certainly an interesting suggestion, for on May 28, at the 

 snow line on the Jade Mountains, as before stated, the males -were still in 

 white plumage, except the useful transocular black." 



In speaking of the Willow Ptarmigan, he says that late in the fall of 

 1898, before any snow had fallen, he found "these white birds very con- 

 spicuous wherever they were." They were also then very shy, but later, 

 after the snow came, " would allow of a much closer approach, but were 

 correspondingly difficult to discover." When the sky was overcast with 

 a dense haze, he says, obscuring the direct rays of the sun, but with an 

 intense even light, the Ptarmigan " were extremely hard to distinguish 

 against the blank whiteness of the landscape. Only some movement of the 

 black bill or eye could betray their presence, and often I have unknowingly 

 approached the birds on the snow within a few yards .... But on a clear 

 dav, when the sun shines unobstructedly, even white objects are brought 

 out in relief by their dark shadows. The Ptarmigan are then discernible 

 for several hundred yards." 



Speaking of the moult of this species he says : " The male Willow 

 Ptarmigan thus undergoes at least three distinct moults during the year, 

 though but one of these, that in the fall, is complete," — a pleasing con- 

 firmation of Dr. Dwight's recent conclusion from a study of museum 

 specimens (Auk, XVII, p. 163). Notwithstanding Mr. Grinnell's study 

 of these birds in the field, from fresh specimens, throughout the year, it 

 ought to be a suggestive fact to those who believe that Ptarmigan change 

 color without moult that Mr. Grinnell makes no reference to such a 

 change, but ascribes the seasonal changes of color to moult, and has 

 the hardihood to point out just how they take place. 



Mr. Grinnell considers the Alaskan Spruce Partridge as inseparable from 

 the Labrador form f^Canachites canadetish labradorius Bangs). The 

 Alaskan form of the Northern Shrike is here separated as a new sub- 

 species, under the name Laniiis borealis invictiis. 



The Cooper Ornithological Club is to be congratulated upon 'having 

 secured so interesting and valuable a paper as Mr. Grinnell's 'Birds of 

 the Kotzebue Sound Region ' as their opening article for their new ' Pacific 

 Coast Avifauna' series. — J. A. A. 



' Sharpe's ' Hand List of the Genera and Species of Birds,' Vol. II. — 

 In 'The Auk' for January, 1900 (pp. 79-81), we had the pleasure of call- 

 ing attention to the first volume of this indispensable work. We then 

 stated so fully the character of the work that we have now merely to 

 chronicle the appearance of Volume II ' and briefly state its scope. The 

 first volume included the orders I -XXVII of Dr. Sharpe's classification, 

 or all the members of the class, living and extinct, from the Saururae to 

 the end of the Strigiformes. The present volum.e records the Psittaci 



1 Volume II, London, 1900. 8vo, pp. i-xxv-l-i-312. 



