4 to Recent Literature. I July 



Freeman's Bird Calendar for the Fargo Region' 3 — As an aid to 

 local bird students Mr. Freeman has presented in the April, 1919, issue of 

 the 'Fargo College Bulletin' a list of the birds of the vicinity of Fargo, 

 N. Dakota, with the dates of arrival or of occurrence taken mainly from 

 his personal records. While the author makes no claim for completeness 

 and solicits additional data, the fact that he has been able to include 181 

 species, hows that his little list forms an important contribution to the 

 published literature of the birds of North Dakota. The species are ar- 

 ranged in systematic order with annotations. Let us hope that this 

 excellent start may be the forerunner of a more extensive report later on, 

 when the co-operation for which the author asks will undoubtedly add a 

 number of species and further data of interest. — W. S. 



Grinnell on the English Sparrow in Death Valley. 1 — Dr. Grinnell 

 on a recent trip to Death Valley was surprised to find a colony of English 

 Sparrows established at the Greenland Ranch, 178 feet below sea level. 

 He points out the fact that so far, during a period of about fifty years, no 

 differentiation from the original English stock has been detected in the 

 birds reared in this country. The fact remains, however, that the con- 

 ditions under which the birds live have perhaps not differed materially 

 from those prevalent in England. Now, however, we have a colony of 

 them established in a spot characterized by probably the highest tempera- 

 ture and lowest relative humidity of any place in North America, and the 

 presence of the birds at this point constitutes, as Dr. Grinnell says, an 

 experiment actually under way which should show how permanent are the 

 subspecific characters which separate this bird from the related European 

 forms. The negative evidence obtained from a study of the bird in other 

 parts of the United States which upholds the permanency of these char- 

 acters seems to Dr. Grinnell to suggest that they are really germinal rather 

 than somatic. 



In his apparent haste to be up-to-date, Dr. Grinnell has adopted Klein- 

 schmidt's separation of the English race from that of the continent, al- 

 though neither Witherby nor Stresemann has been able, with abundant 

 material, to satisfactorily distinguish them. This latter fact seems to 

 emphasize the remarkable permanency of the characters of this bird. 

 Does it not seem that some forms are very much more plastic and sensitive 

 to environmental conditions than others and that Passer domesticus do- 

 mesticus is one of the most difficult to change? Dr. Grinnell's problem 

 is an interesting one and in the same connection would it not be in order 

 to repeat Mr. Beebe's experiment on the effect of humid atmospheric con- 



3 A Bird Calendar of the Fargo Region. By Daniel Freeman. Fargo College 

 Bulletin, XV, No. 1, April, 1919, pp. 9-16. 



1 The English Sparrow has Arrived in Death Valley: An Experiment in Nature. 

 By Joseph Grinnell. American Naturalist, Vol. L1II, Sept. -Oct., 1919, pp. 

 468-473. 



