78 Recent Literature. | ae 
Cory’s ‘ The Birds of Eastern North America. Part II. Land Birds.’! 
— Part II of Mr. Cory’s ‘ Birds of Eastern North America’ comprises the 
‘Key to the Families and Species of the Land Birds,’ to which is added 
a list of all the birds of eastern North America. The ‘Land Birds’ are 
treated after the same plan as the ‘ Water Birds,’ already noticed at some 
length in this journal (Vol. XVI, 1899, pp. 366, 367). . There is the same 
lavishness of illustration and the same brevity of text, the illustrations 
in both cases forming the main basis of the work, these being so numer- 
ous and so well-chosen that the text may be considered as the thread that 
connects them and explains their application. In this respect the work 
is unique. Bills, wings, tails and feet are the parts chiefly figured, with a 
full-length illustration of at least one representative species for each 
genus. The Keys are founded primarily on size as indicated by the 
length of the closed wing, the land birds being divided on this basis into 
five ‘groups,’ which are subdivided into ‘ sections’ according to the form 
of the bill or feet, etc. ; these are subdivided, as occasion requires, on 
other characters. 
In the order of make-up there is first an ‘Index Key to Families’ (pp. 
131, 132); then the ‘ Key to Families’ (pp. 133-148), in which the arrange- 
ment is wholly arbitrary, beginning with the Hummingbirds and end- 
ing with the larger game birds and the larger birds of prey. This is 
followed by the ‘ Key to the Species’ (pp. 149-324), in which the families, 
with their genera and species, follow each other in natural sequence. 
The text under each is reduced to a brief statement of essential characters. 
Following the name of each species and subspecies is a reference by 
number to the ‘List’ that follows (pp. 325-387). This is a revised 
reprint of the author’s previously published ‘ List of the Birds of Eastern 
North America, which in arrangement and nomenclature follows 
strictly the A. O. U. Check-List. It comprises 500 species and 70 addi- 
tional subspecies, all numbered consecutively, and each followed by a 
brief statement of its geographical range. The author in his ‘Key to 
Families’ of North American birds has certainly reduced the difficulty of 
identifying our birds to a minimum, and anyone so unfortunate as not 
to be able to identify his specimens, in any state of plumage, by Mr. 
Cory’s ‘Keys’ may well give up the attempt in despair. — J. A. A. 
‘Avium Generum Index Alphabeticus.’— The British Ornithologists’ 
Club has recently published ‘‘ An Alphabetical Index to the Genera 
1The Birds | of | Eastern North America | known to occur East of the 
Ninetieth Meridian | — | Part II | — | Land Birds | —Key to the Families 
and Species | — | By | Charles B. Cory | Curator of the Department of Orni- 
thology in the Field Columbian Museum Chicago.... | — | Special Edition 
printed for the | Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Ill. | 1899. — Large 8vo, 
pp. i-ix, 131-387, with several hundred illustratiens in the text. 
