188 feecent Literature. Ana 
information on the subject began to be a matter record, when Mr. Brews- 
ter published his list of 66 summer birds observed in the vicinity of Grey- 
lock Mountain (Auk, I, 1884, pp. 5-16), and five years later this was 
materially supplemented by Mr. Faxon’s lists of the birds of Sheffield 
(76 species) and Greylock (80 species, Auk, VI, 1889, pp. 39-46, 99-107), 
and by Mr. Hoffmann’s still later paper on the summer birds of Central 
Berkshire (Auk, XII, 1895, pp. 87-89). The present paper presents the 
the combined results of these and other observations on the birds of 
Berkshire, the authors having made numerous visits to the region for the 
purpose of studying its bird fauna, not only in summer, but also in winter, 
spring and autumn. 
While the list is admittedly incomplete, especially as regards the larger 
migrants and the winter stragglers, it presents all the information at pres- 
ent available on the subject, and is doubtless essentially complete as 
regards the summer birds of the region. The list, copiously annotated, 
numbers 197 species, with 4 additional subspecies, or, excluding the 
House Sparrow, just 200 forms. The first six pages contain a general 
account of the varied topographic and biologic characteristics of the 
region. Greylock is described as rising above the surrounding country 
like ‘an island of northern vegetation,” and on its top have been found 
birds ‘‘ whose normal habitat is the edge of the tree line of the loftier north- 
ern mountains,” while in the Housatonic Valley a few southern or ‘* Caro- 
linian’ species find their way northward from southern Connecticut. A 
bibliography of several pages shows ‘‘the published sources of informa- 
tion available for the purposes of the list.” The authors have chosen to 
impress upon their work a certain stamp of individuality by adopting an 
order of arrangement inverse to that of the A. O. U. Check-List, and in 
spelling a few of the technical names according to their particular prefer- 
ences. The list appears to be a ‘hard-and-fast’ one, so far as it goes, 
every doubtful record being rigidly excluded, and, as already said, as 
complete as present knowledge renders it possible to make it.—J. A. A. 
‘Birds in Horticulture.’ —In an address read before the Illinois State 
Horticultural Society,! Mr. Wm. E. Praeger makes a very good presenta- 
tion of the facts in the case as regards the utility of birds to the horticul- 
turist. He does not ignore the appropriation by certain birds of more or 
less fruit, but brings forward in offset the evidence of their extreme 
utility to the agriculturist at nearly all seasons, based on the investigation 
by competent experts of the general food habits of the species charged 
with injury to the crops. His conclusion is that in the case of the great 
majority of birds the good they do is so great and the harm, if any, so 
trifling that they should be encouraged and protected at all times.— J. A.A. 
' Birds in Horticulture. By Wm. E. Praeger. A paper read before the 
State Horticultural Society at Springfield, Ill., Dec. 26, 1899. 8vo., pp. 12. 
