486 Recent Literature. [oct. 



sing during the coldest winters. That a few migrate to the coast of South 

 Carolina and Georgia at times is evinced by the capture of one by Mr. 

 Herbert Ravenel Sass at the Navy Yard, Charleston, on October 17, 1907, 

 and by the writer seeing one near his home on October 16, 1907. (See 

 Bull. Chas. Mus. Ill, 1907, 54; and Auk, XXV, 1908, 87.) 



Hylocichla alicise bicknelli. Bicknell's Thrush. — In the collec- 

 tion of birds received from Mr. Perry there is a very small specimen of this 

 race that is wrongly labeled by him " Olive B.[acked] Thrush." Although 

 the sex was not determined it is doubtless a female, and was taken at 

 Savannah by him on May 16, 1910. There is a malformation of the maxilla 

 which is very nearly a quarter of an inch shorter than the mandible. Upon 

 comparing this bird with specimens of alicice from South Carolina, in which 

 both males and females are represented, Mr. Perry's bird is an inch smaller 

 in length than any female I have and the " make up " of the bird is much 

 lengthened. Bicknell's Thrush is a rare bird in South Carolina, and I have 

 taken but a single individual on May 10, 1900. How this bird manages 

 to reach its breeding grounds in the Catskills and Nova Scotia without 

 passing through South Carolina, is a puzzle. — Arthur T. Wayne, Ml. 

 Pleasant, S. C. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



Dwight's Review of the Juncos.' — Dr. Dwight, in the brochure 

 before us, has contributed to ornithological literature a philosophical dis- 

 cussion of a high order. His paper is most welcome not only because we 

 have too few of like character, but also because of the amount of pains- 

 taking study and deep thought that this especial treatise represents. 



The paper may be considered under two heads, (1) as a systematic 

 arrangement of the species and subspecies of the genus Junco, and (2) as 

 an attempt to define by criteria the species, subspecies and hybrid. 



The results from a systematic point of view may conveniently be com- 

 pared with those of Mr. Robert Ridgway's study of the same group. 

 Comparison with the A. O. U. ' Check-List ' is hardly necessary since it 

 is no secret that the arrangement of the genus there adopted was in the 

 nature of a compromise and represented no detailed original research. 

 Comparing, therefore, the species and races recognized respectively by 

 Dwight and Ridgway and the names employed by them we find that each 



1 The Geographic Distribution of Color and of other variable Characters in the Genus 

 Junco: a new Aspect of specific and subspecific Values. By Jonathan Dwight, M. D. 

 Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. XXXVIII, Art. IX, pp. 269-309. June 1, 1918. 



