V i°Sq? X 1 Recent Literature. 2QI 



author was in the field from March to September, passing the first three 

 months at five places in the neighborhood of Puget Sound and the Straits 

 of Georgia, and spending the rest of the time in the interior of British 

 Columbia where he made short visits to nine different points widely un- 

 like in their climatic conditions. In an introduction of a few pages each 

 locality is briefly described, and some generalizations are given in regard 

 to the distribution, and causes of distribution, of British Columbia birds. 

 Some of these conclusions — though founded largely on conjecture — are 

 stated with the positiveness of established facts, and, with other sweeping 

 statements that appear here and there through its pages, suggest — what 

 seems to be the principal fault in the paper — a certain lack of care and 

 thoroughness in its preparation. 



In one of the opening paragraphs Mr. Rhoads remarks that "the bib- 

 liography of Washington and British Columbia ornithology is verv 

 meagre," and his own knowledge of its literature unhappily appears to 

 be so, to judge from the long array of species which he proceeds to add 

 to the list of birds known to occur in each of these districts. Readers 

 who have been more fortunate than he in their bibliographical researches 

 will hardly be surprised to find that about half of these "additional 

 species" have been recorded before, but they may wonder at the careless- 

 ness which enables the author to swell his British Columbia list with 

 species mentioned by Chapman and Fannin (whose recent paper he does 

 refer to), and even to "add" to the Washington record two birds whose 

 type specimens undoubtedly came from that State. The latter are 

 Dryobates p. gairdnerii and Chtetura vauxi, while among other species 

 that are wrongly given as novelties in one or the other list are Colytn- 

 btts holbcelli, Brachyramphus marmoratus, Larus califor?u'cus, Larus 

 brackyr/iync/ius, Lophodytes cucullatus. Spatula clypeata, Aix sponsa , 

 Avthya americana, Anser albifrons gambcli, Fulica americana, Totanus 

 fiavipcs, Oreortyx pictus, Catkartes aura, Circus hudsonius, Falco 

 columbarius suckleyi, Asio zvilsonianus, Bubo virginianus subarcticus, 

 Qlaucidium gnotna, Cyflseloides niger. Pica pica kudsonica, Agelaius 

 p/neniceus, Prague subis. Sitta canadensis, and Parus atricapillus 

 occidentalis. 



The main body of the paper is a list of the birds seen during the trip. 

 By covering so much and such varied ground, by great activity in the 

 field, and by inspection of the local collections that came in his way, 

 Mr. Rhoads has been able to include a remarkably large number of 

 species, in all (reckoning in subspecies) 260. In dividing his time be- 

 tween so many localities his object appears to have been to make a com- 

 parative study of the faunal peculiarities of the different parts of the 

 territory included in British Columbia. This purpose is one whose ful- 

 filment is greatly to be desired, but it seems doubtful whether the limited 

 opportunities furnished by one season's work of a single observer — even 

 as energetic and tireless an explorer as Mr. Rhoads — might not have been 

 devoted more profitably to a more thorough investigation of the fauna of 



