606 Recent Literature. [bet. 



RECENT LITERATURE 



Townsend's 'Supplement to Birds of Essex County.' — In 1905 

 the Nuttall Ornithological Club published an admirable volume on the 

 birds of Essex County, Mass., by Dr. Charles W. Townsend which has 

 ever since been the standard work of reference on the coastwise bird-life 

 of Massachusetts. Fifteen years have now elapsed and the Club pre- 

 sents a "supplement" by the same author, 1 which is rather more than 

 half the size of the original. 



Dr. Townsend has gathered together such a vast amount of additional 

 information during this period of years that many changes have been 

 found necessary in the dates of occurrence and status of the species and 

 it was thought best to reprint the entire list with the statements of the 

 character of occurrence of each species and under these such new matter 

 in regard to habits and life history as had been secured. Sixteen species 

 have been added and two dropped bringing the total to 335. The nomen- 

 clature has been revised to accord with the 1910 edition of the A. O. U. 

 'Check-List' although one form, the Labrador Chickadee, has been in- 

 cluded which, as explained, has not yet been recognized by the A. O. U. 

 committee. There is a bibliography covering the years 1905-1915 and a 

 good index. 



The volume is a fitting companion to the earlier list with which it con- 

 forms in size, typography and style. The two together form not only 

 the up-to-date list of the birds of Essex County which the author aimed 

 to present, but a repository of first-hand observation on the habits of 

 most of the species mentioned, which must be consulted by anyone who 

 may be compiling an exhaustive bird biography or reading up the life 

 history of a species for his own edification. 



For the general reader however we think the introductory chapter on 

 "Changes in the Bird Life of Essex County since 1905," will possess a 

 peculiar interest, so well does it summarize the changes that we have all 

 noticed, even though we but partially appreciated them, in our own 

 neighborhoods. There has been the astonishing increase in the interest 

 in birds and in the preservation of birds and game; the devastation of 

 bird haunts and the driving away of certain species in the zeal of some 

 other supposedly worthy activity — the war on the Gypsy moth in the 

 case of Essex County, but in other places the war on the mosquito or the 

 chestnut blight, etc.. — the advent of the Italian pot-hunter; the use of 

 the automobile by hunters in covering large areas of country in a single 

 day; and the use of the field-glass in bird-study — indispensable in the 



i Supplement to Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts. By Charles Wendell 

 Townsend, M.D. With one Plate and Map. Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornitho- 

 logical Club. No. 7. Cambridge, Mass. Published by the Club. August 

 [sic! 1920. pp. 1-196 [reviewed from unbound sheets]. 



