362 Recent Literature. [),j y 



rections having been made in the text in the later (American) edition. 

 The paper differs from that on which the corresponding Edinburgh edition 

 .is printed, being of excellent quality, and entirely free from foxing, the 

 pages are larger, slightly trimmed, and the volume altogether a fine example 

 of American book making. — William C. Braislix, M. D., Brooklyn, 

 X. Y. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



Loomis on the Tubinares. 1 — As is generally known Mr. Loomis has 

 been engaged in a study of the Tubinares for a good many years past. 

 As early as 1S95 there appeared the first of his series of papers on Cali- 

 fornian water birds and following these he, as Director of the museum of 

 the California Academy, organized an expedition to the Revilla Gigedo 

 Islands which brought back a large collection of these pelagic birds to a 

 study of which Mr. Loomis at once devoted himself. All of this material 

 was destroyed in the disastrous conflagration of 1906, but the Academy's 

 Galapagos Expedition under Mr. Rollo H. Beck, which returned in the 

 same year, brought even richer material and upon this collection and other 

 recent accessions, numbering upwards of two thousand specimens, Mr. 

 Loomis's study is based. He has likewise visited the leading museums of 

 the United States and studied their material while he has embodied the 

 results of his own field studies and the manuscript notes of members of 

 the two expeditions above referred to — Messrs. E. W. Gifford, Rollo H. 

 Beck and Dr. A. S. Bunnell. Naturally his report constitutes a contribu- 

 tion of very great importance to our knowledge of these puzzling birds of 

 the high seas and has been looked forward to with much interest by orni- 

 thologists. 



The treatise has been prepared with much deliberation and in the schol- 

 arly style that has always characterized Mr. Loomis's writings while the 

 author's thorough acquaintance with the literature of the subject is mani- 

 fest on every page. It is divided into six parts: I. Historical; giving a 

 brief sketch of the men and publications which have contributed to our 

 knowledge of the group, including portraits of Coues, Salvin and Godman, 

 after whom he has named the principal periods in the literature of the 

 Tubinares; II. Geographic Distribution; III. Migration; IV. Variation; 

 V. Classification and Nomenclature; VI. Results of the Study. 



1 A Review of the Albatrosses, Petrels, and Diving Petrels. Expedition of the Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences to the Galapagos Islands, 1905-1906. By Leverett Mills 

 Loomis. Proc. Acad. Calif. Sci. Fourth Series. Vol. II, Pt. II, No. 12, pp. 1-187, pll. 

 1-17. April 22, 1918. 



