Vol-^XXVII-j ^g^g,^^ Literature. 355 



quil late in September, 1895, and travelled and collected in Ecuador till 

 about the end of February, 1898, when he returned to Europe. His work 

 was mainly in the Andean region, which he traversed from Cuenca to 

 beyond Tulcan. He made extensive collections in all departments of 

 zoology, but especially of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes. From the 

 summary of the 'Zoological Results' given at the end of the volume, it 

 appears that a large part of the mammals and much of the invertebrate 

 material still remains unpublished. The birds were promptly worked out 

 and published in cooperation with Professor Salvadori,' the collection of 

 Ecuador birds alone numbering nearly 3000 specimens and 613 species, of 

 which 17 proved to be new. The present volume, as the title shows, is the 

 author's diary of his explorations, and contains much of general interest 

 concerning the countries visited and their people, especially the Indians 

 and their antiquities, besides the wide range of natural history notes one 

 would ex[)ect to find in the diary of a naturalist engaged in exploration. 

 The numerous half-tone plates give views of characteristic Andean and other 

 scenery, and of the natives, their habitations, utensils, weapons, and orna- 

 ments. Only the first 53 pages are devoted to Darien, where the author 

 spent only a few months of his three years of exploration in Central and 

 South America. Although the text abounds in references to the birds 

 and other forms of animal life, there is unfortunately no index to enable 

 one to turn readily to the information here so abundantly recorded. — 

 J. A. A. 



Thoreau's 'Notes on New England Birds.' — Mr. Francis H. Allen has 

 brought together in a handy volume, published by the Houghton Mifflin 

 Company,- the notes on birds scattered through the fourteen volumes of 

 Thoreau's published 'Journal', "in the belief that readers and students 

 would be glad to have these bird notes arranged systematically in a single 

 volume." The editor has thus earned the gratitude of bird lovers and of 

 the many admirers of Thoreau's quaint and often poetic manner of record- 

 ing his observations and interpretations of nature. These bird notes 

 were jotted down in Thoreau's diaries mainly between the years 1850 to 

 1860, with a few of later date and some written as early as 1842. Thoreau 

 was a keen observer, and had much to record about many species, and 

 though not an ornithologist, and sometimes mistaken in his identifications, 

 being autoptically acquainted with very few species, his records have 

 value as covering a period when ornithological observers were few, and the 

 means of identification scanty in comparison with the profusion of hand- 



1 Noticed in The Auk, Vol. XVI, 1899, p. 292; Vol. XV, 1900, pp. 81, 303. 



' Notes on | New England Birds | By | Henry D. Thoreau 1 arranged and edited | 

 by I Francis H. Allen | With Illustrations from Photographs | of Birds from Nature | 

 [colophon] I Boston and New York | Houghton MifHin Company | The Riverside 

 Press, Cambridge | 1910 — 12mo, pp. xiv + 452, 8 half-tone plates, and map of Con- 

 cord, Mass. May, 1910. $1.75 net. 



