94 Recent Literature. Ys&n. 



chiefly the mountainous section," lists covering neighboring States and 

 publications of the U. S. Biological Survey, we cannot help but wonder 

 whether he is familiar with the most important of all the Tennessee lists, 

 that of Saml. N. Rhoads, published in the ' Proceedings of the Phila- 

 delphia Academy ' for 1895, which furnishes data on no less than 215 spe- 

 cies. There is also an interesting paper on Tennessee birds by Bradford 

 Torrey in the ' Atlantic Monthly ' for February, 1896. — W. S. 



Birds of Carthage, Illinois. 1 — Carthage College has published a list 

 of the birds of Hancock County, 111., compiled by the members of the bird 

 class under the direction of Prof. F. C. Gates. 155 species are listed with 

 the dates on which they were seen. Appended is a list of specimens in 

 the college museum. — W. S. 



Swarth and Bryant on the White-fronted Geese of California. 2 — 



The writers of this interesting contribution to our knowledge of the Ameri- 

 can geese were led to make an investigation of the White-fronted Geese of 

 California by the statements of Mr. Geo. Neale and Judge F. W. Henshaw, 

 to the effect that there were two forms of these birds, a large one and a 

 small one. Subsequently specimens were presented by the same gentle- 

 men to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley, Cal., which fully 

 substantiated their claim. A thorough examination of a large number of 

 birds, as well as the literature of the subject, has led the authors to the 

 following conclusions. The existence of two perfectly distinct races of 

 White-fronted Geese in North America has been overlooked by all writers 

 on the subject and the discrepancy in the size of certain individuals has 

 caused doubt as to the validity of the race gambeli as distinct from albifrons 

 of the Old World. As a matter of fact the former was based on the large 

 American bird while the smaller form, which seems to be by far the com- 

 moner is nothing more than the true albifrons hitherto supposed to be 

 restricted to the Old World except as a doubtful straggler to Greenland. 

 The authors have done a good piece of work and the only fault that we have 

 to find with their paper is the rather careless use of the word " species " 

 when they mean subspecies. The term " form " seems to be the only word 

 available where we are forced to discuss both species and subspecies at the 

 same time. Possibly this ambiguity may have had something to do with 

 the apparent perplexity of a reviewer in a recent issue of ' The Oologist 

 who charges the authors with describing a new subspecies, a " crime " 

 which they studiously avoided. — W. S. 



1 Bird Number. Carthage College Bulletin. Vol. Ill, No. 11. April. 1917, pp. S. 



2 A Study of the Races of the White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons) Occurring in Cali- 

 fornia. By H. S. Swarth and Harold C. Bryant. Univ. of Cal. Publications in Zoology. 

 Vol. 17, No. 11, pp. 209-222. October 19, 1917. 



