412 Recent Literature. [jiily 



The region covered comprises the town of Jefferson and portions of the 

 towns of Lancaster, Whitefield, Carroll and Randolph and the northern 

 and western slopes of the Presidential Range to the Crawford House 

 Plateau. An introduction furnishes a description of the physical features 

 of the region and the birds characteristic of the several areas. The changes 

 wrought by lumbering and fire, now familiar features of all wooded country, 

 are referred to, resulting here in the decrease in the numbers of the Canada 

 Spruce Partridge, the Three-toed Woodpeckers, Canada Jay, Winter Wren, 

 Brown Creeper, Red-breasted Nuthatch and Hudsonian Chickadee and 

 the increase of the Meadowlark, Yellow Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, Wood 

 Thrush, Prairie Horned Lark, Red-winged Blackbird, Field Sparrow, and 

 House Wren. 



The annotations contain many observations of interest and the list as a 

 whole will prove most welcome not only to New Hampshire ornithologists 

 but to many bird students from all parts of the country who are accus- 

 tomed to visit the White Mountain region. — W. S. 



Dill and Bryan on Laysan Island. ^ — This well illustrated pamphlet 

 describes a visit to Laysan, the principal island of the Hawaiian reservation, 

 for the purpose of investigating the damage done by a party of twenty-three 

 foreign plumage hunters who were arrested on the island in 1910, after they 

 had destroyed over 250,000 birds, largely Albatrosses. Fortunately the 

 poachers had been able to despoil only part of the island and it is considered 

 that with immunity from destruction in the future the birds will regain 

 their former numbers. The report shows the same birds present as were 

 recorded by Dr. W. K. Fisher in 1902 with the addition of Bulwer's Petrel, 

 Bulweria bulweri, and the Sooty Petrel, Oceanodroma tristrami. Estimates 

 place the present bird population at about one million individuals of 

 which one third are Sooty Terns and nearly a third Albatrosses, Diomedia 

 immutabilis, and D. nigra. 



The narrative and list of species are by Prof. Dill, while Prof. Brj^an, 

 whose familiarity with the islands and knowledge of the previous slaughter 

 on Midway and Marcus Islands, especially fitted him for the task, has 

 reported in detail on the present and past conditions and on the best 

 methods to pursue in the future protection of the birds. Mr. H. W. 

 Henshaw has contributed a brief summary of this report to the Yearbook 

 of the Department of Agriculture.^ — W. S. 



1 Report on an Expedition to Laysan Island in 1911. Under the Joint Auspices 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture and the University of Iowa. By 

 Homer R. Dill, Assistant Professor of Zoology in the State University of Iowa 

 and Wm. Alanson Bryan, Professor of Zoology in the College of Hawaii. Bulletin 

 42. Biological Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. Washington, 1912. 



- Our Mid-Pacific Bird Reservation. By Henry W. Henshaw. From the 

 Yearbook, U. S. Dept. Agr., 1911, pp. 153-1G4. 



