258 Recent Literatwe. LApril 



Sclater's Birds of Colorado.' — This work forms a handsome uncut 

 octavo volume of 576 pages, beautifully printed on heavy unsized paper, 

 illustrated by sixteen excellent halftones from photographs of birds and 

 nests by R. B. Rockwell, E. R. Warren and H. W. Nash; a contour map 

 of Colorado and a frontispiece portrait of General William J. Palmer. 



As he explains in the introduction Mr. Sclater was induced to prepare 

 this volume by the often expressed desire of General Palmer but before it 

 was ready for publication the General died and the work now appears as a 

 personal tribute to him, the expenses of publication being defrayed by his 

 sister-in-law, Mrs. Wm. L. Sclater and his brother-in-law, Mr. Chase Mellen. 

 General Palmer's interest in nature and in the welfare of the Colorado 

 College Museum of which Mr. Sclater was for some time director are thus 

 fittingly memorialized. 



The introduction contains a few paragraphs on the physical features 

 of Colorado and nominal lists of the birds arranged according to character 

 of occurrence and vertical distribution. 



The main text consists of a key to the orders, keys to the families and 

 genera, and keys to the species, diagnoses of the families and genera; 

 and detailed treatment of the species. Under each species are given the 

 A. O. U. number; references to the pubhshed Colorado records, the papers 

 being listed in a bibliography at the end of the volume and referred to 

 here by number; a full description; a paragraph on di.stribution, abun- 

 dance and time of occurrence; and a short account of habits. 



The Aiken collection of Colorado birds secured for the Colorado College 

 Museum by General Palmer forms the basis of Mr. Sclater's work while 

 he makes special acknowledgment to Chas. E. Aiken, E. R. Warren 

 and Judge Junius Henderson for assistance and to the extensive note- 

 books of the late Dennis Gale. 



Mr. Sclater has apparently made an exhaustive study of the literature 

 of Colorado ornithology and his work is a scholarly compilation. Authori- 

 ties are quoted frequently for nearly all statements — so frequently 

 indeed that one misses the freshness and life that characterize accounts 

 of bird habits drawn more largely from personal experience, but Mr. 

 Sclater makes no claim to original investigations and in the comparatively 

 short period of his residence in Colorado he has certainly admirably mas- 

 tered the subject which he here presents, the History of the Birds of Colo- 

 rado. 



The nomenclature and classification used are "almost without exception 

 that of the recently published third edition of the A. O. U. Check-List" 

 Whether Pedioccetes, Architrochilus (for Archilochus) and Chondestes gram- 



» A History of 1 the Birds of Colorado | By 1 William Lutley Sclater | M. A. 

 (Oxon.), M. B. O. U., Hon. M. A. O. U. | (Lately Director of the Colorado College 

 Museum.) | with Seventeen Plates and a Map. | Witherby & Co. | 326 High 

 Holborn London | 1912. American agents Stechert & Co., West 20th St., N. Y. 

 City. Price, $5. 



