468 Recent Literature. [^' t k 



and exceedingly interesting reminiscences will furnish a fund of grateful 

 information to the local antiquarians of coming generations, and form 

 also a most valuable record of the biologic changes in the region in question 

 during the last half of the nineteenth century. 



This historical resume is followed by a nominal list of the species of the 

 Cambridge Region, under vernacular names, divided into nine groups, 

 according to "the character or status of their occurrence at the present 

 time," as to whether permanent, summer, or winter residents, migrants, 

 of casual occurrence, introduced, or extinct, etc., followed by several 

 pages of comment. Then occur several pages devoted to ' Faunal Changes,' 

 noting the species that have locally increased or decreased, and the known 

 or apparent causes, as the case may be. Those whose local decrease is- 

 apparently due to persecution by the House Sparrows are the Least Fly- 

 catcher, Purple Finch, Song Sparrow, Indigo-bird, Tree Swallow, House 

 Wren, and Bluebird. Following this are four pages on the 'Introduction 

 of the House Sparrow,' giving a history of its introduction and its subse- 

 quent increase, and its influence upon the native bird fauna, including its 

 dispossession methods in the case of the House Wren, Bluebird, and Tree 

 and Eave Swallows, and its forays on the nests of vireos, warblers, and 

 the smaller flycatchers. 



Of special interest is the section devoted to 'Early Writers and Orni- 

 thologists' (pp. 69-84), including Thomas Morton, William Wood, and 

 John Josselyn among the 'early writers,' and Nuttall, and Samuel and J. 

 Elliot Cabot among the ornithologists. A portrait of Nuttall appropriately 

 forms the frontispiece of the memoir, and nearly six pages are given to 

 a sketch of his life and work. As a botanist Nuttall has been accorded 

 high praise by subsequent botanical authorities, but Mr. Brewster calls 

 his 'Manual' of ornithology, his only book on birds, largely a compilation. 

 "Besides including borrowed statements and quotations for which he 

 gave full credit, and much general matter which he made in a sense his 

 own by re-writing it, he took long passages without acknowledgment 

 and with but comparatively slight verbal changes from Wilson 



"It is not less to be wondered at than regretted that Nuttall should have 

 resorted so freely to this practice .... At the time of writing his ' Manual ' 

 he probably knew less about birds than is generally supposed .... Indeed 

 it is chiefly to the literary excellence of his ' Manual ' that this book owes 

 its enduring popularity .... His accounts of his own experiences and 

 observations are so very interesting and attractive that one is disappointed 

 only because his book does not contain more of them. He was without 

 question an exceptionally careful and accurate observer of everything 

 which especially attracted his attention. His original descriptions of the 

 habits and actions of birds are invariably good, and his renderings of their 

 songs and call notes rank among the very best that have ever been pub- 

 lished. 



"It is probable that the period of Nuttall's greatest interest and activity 

 in the field study of birds was that during which he was engaged in writing 



