'^''^'m^e'^"^] Recent Literature. 335 



est in the birds of the island among the residents and the author is to be 

 congratulated upon an admir^able piece of work. — W. S. 



Hersey's ' List of Birds Observed in Alaska and Siberia.' ^ — Mr. 



Hersey's trip along the Alaskan coast during the summer of 1914 was 

 undertaken in the interest of Mr. A. C. Bent to obtain data for his continua- 

 tion of the ' Life Histories of North American Birds.' Notes on 105 

 species are contained in the list of which 74 are water-birds. 



The " repeated occurrence " of Fisher's Petrel {^strelata fisheri) was one 

 of the pleasures of the trip, but the scarcity of the Emperor Goose and 

 Spectacled Eider seems to point to the greatly increased rarity of these 

 species in the near future. 



The practice of treating two species collectively in the annotated list is 

 unfortunate as it leads to ambiguity. On p. 13 for instance it is impos- 

 sible to tell whether the four gulls that followed the vessel to Ketchikan 

 included any Western Gulls or whether they were all Herring Gulls. If 

 any of the former wei'e present the occun-ence constitutes a new record 

 for Alaska. 



Mr. Hersey's list is a welcome addition to the literature of the Alaskan 

 coast and the western arctic region, and the extensive notes obtained for 

 Mr. Bent will doubtless add largely to the accuracy and interest of his 

 accounts of the northwestern waterfowl. — W. S. 



Brooks' ' Notes on Birds from East Siberia and Arctic Alaska.'- — 



Messrs. W. Sprague Brooks and Joseph Dixon accompanied the ' Polar 

 Bear ' hunting party, organized by graduates of Harvard University in the 

 spring of 1913, and remained in the Arctic regions for some fifteen months, 

 making collections for the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The paper 

 before us comprises Mr. Brooks' report on the birds, of which 160 species 

 were observed. Notes of interest on the habits and distribution of many 

 of the species are presented. Five forms are considered worthy of differ- 

 entiation. A gull from EUesmere Land allied to L. kumlieni is named 

 Larus thayeri (p. 373) in honor of Col. J. E. Thayer through whose gener- 

 osity the collection was obtained. The other new forms are Histrionicus 

 h. pacificus (p. 393), Cape Shipunski, Kamchatka, including all the 

 Pacific coast Harlequins; (Edemia deglandi dixoni (p. 393), Humphrey 

 Pt., Alaska; Nannus hiemalis semidiensis (p. 400), Semidi Islands, Alaska; 

 Leucostictc grisconucha maxima (p. 405), Commander Islands. 



Messrs. Brooks and Dixon deserve much credit for securing so many 

 interesting specimens and for visiting so many localities. They have added 

 materially to our knowledge of the birds of the great northwestern arctic 

 coast. — W. S. 



' A List of the Birds Observed in Alaska and Northeastern Siberia During the Sumnaer 

 of 1914. By F. Seymour Hersey. Smithson. Misc. Collns. Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 1-33. 

 1916. 



2 Notes on Birds from East Siberia and Arctic Alaska. By W. Sprague Brooks. Bull. 

 Mus. Comp. Zool. Vol. LIX, No. 5. pp. 361-413. September. 1915. 



