^°^;^^-^^l Recent Literature. 417 



1914 J 



Stresemann on Early Accounts of Birds of Paradise.' — This paper 

 consists of a series of extracts from the earUest works on New Guinea 

 which contained accounts of the Paradise birds with comments by the 

 author. There are also reproductions of two curious Italian water colore 

 of the second half of the Sixteenth Century in the possession of the Tring 

 Museum which represent skins of Birds of Paradise.— W. S. 



Wright and Allen's Field Note-book of Birds.^ — This work has the 

 advantage of other similar field note-books in having an outhne drawing at 

 the top of each page upon which the colors of the various parts may be 

 written while the bird is under observation, producing a quicker and more 

 accurate result than any written description. Most pages are headed by a 

 typical passerine bird followed by a few pages of woodpeckers, guUs, herons, 

 shore-birds, ducks, and hawks. A schedule for data other than colors is 

 printed below the figure. There are also at the end a list of local migration 

 dates and a number of cross-lined pages for records of daily observations. 

 This seems to be an admirable, note-book for the beginner who has yet to 

 ' learn his birds ' and is studying the bird in the bush rather than in the 

 hand.— W. S. 



Bryant on the Economic Status of the Western Meadowlark.' — 



After the pubUcation of at least five preUminary papers on this subject, 

 the results of the special investigation undertaken by the State of Cali- 

 fornia are now summarized. The present paper differs chiefly from the 

 bulkier of its predecessors in the larger amount of historical and philo- 

 sophical matter contained. More attention will be paid to this new 

 matter, therefore, than to that which has previously been reviewed.* 



The reviewer hopes he may be pardoned for taking a more critical view 

 of this newer, more theoretical material, since his attitude results from no 

 animus, but from a desire to put things in a proper hght. The chief effort 

 of Bryant's thesis apparently is to maintain an aspect of originality. Yet 

 he like others with the same ambition, in the end depends mamly on the 

 tried and true. Dissatisfaction with the existing order is expressed in the 

 following paragraph from the preface: 



. Was wussten die SchriftsteUer des XVI. Jahrhunderts von den Paradies- 

 vogeln^ Eln Beitrag zur Geschichte der Ornithologie. Von Erwin Stresemann. 

 Novitates Zoologicee. XXI. pp. 13-24, pis. 1-2. February 1914 



2 Field Note-Book of Birds. By A. H. Wright and A. A. Allen _ Dept^ of 

 Zoology, Cornell University. Including OutUnes for the Recording of Observa- 

 tions and Sheets for Preserving a Check-List of the Birds Seen Ithaca. N. Y. 

 1913. Price, 50 cents; postage, 4 cents. Corner Book-Stores Ithaca_N.Y^ 



sBrvant H C A determination of the economic status of the western 

 meadowlark iStumella ne.Ucta) in California. Univ. of Calif. Publ. m Zoology. 

 Vol. 11, No. 14, pp. 377-510. pis. 21-24. 5 text figs. Feb. 27. 194. 



* Auk, Vol. XXX, No. 1, Jan., 1913. pp. 132-133. No. 2, April. 1913, pp. 294- 

 295, No. 3, July. 1913. p. 453. 



