^°i9o'^^] Receiit Literature. 453 



Chapman's ' The Economic Value of Birds to the State.' — By request 

 of the New York State Forest, Fish, and Game Commission, Mr. Chap- 

 man has prepared a paper on ' The Economic Vakie of Birds to the 

 State,' 1 of whicli advance copies have just been received. It forms a part 

 of the Annual Report of the Commission for the year 1902, and consists 

 of nearly seventy pages of text and twelve colored plates by Fuertes, 

 drawn especially for the work, and effectively reproduced by Hoen & 

 Company of Baltimore. They form one of the most beautiful series of 

 bird plates yet published. The drawings are at Fuertes's best, and the 

 reproduction merits high praise. The twelve plates illustrate twenty-four 

 species of om^ common land birds, the leading types, from Hawks to 

 Thrushes. 



The text is well worthy of the beautiful plates. Although, as the case 

 necessarily requires, the paper is largely a compilation, the selections are 

 judiciously made, as regards sources of information and choice of matter, 

 which is largely from special bulletins and reports on the food habits of 

 birds published by the Biological Survey, under the auspices of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture. The first twenty pages are devoted to a gen- 

 eral discussion of the economic value of birds to the forester, the fruit- 

 grower, the farmer, and the citizen, being a statement of 'What the bird 

 does for the State,' followed by 'What the State does for the Bird,' and 

 'What the State should do for the Bird.' This is succeeded by ' Statistics 

 of Food Habits' (pp. 23-63), in which the leading groups, and certain of 

 the species, of land birds are treated in systematic sequence ; and to this 

 is added a bibliography of about seventy-five titles, listing the more 

 important papers relating to the food of American birds. 



The attitude of the author on the question of 'The Bird and the State' 

 may be indicated by the following extract from his opening paragraph : 

 "The bird is the property of the State. From this fundamental con- 

 ception of the bird's legal status there can be no logical ground for dissent. 

 If a certain species of bird is conclusively proven to be injurious to the 

 agricultural or other interests of the State, no one would deny the State's 

 right to destroy that species. If, on the contrary, a species is shown to 

 be beneficial, then the State has a right to protect it. Indeed, we may go 

 further and say it is not only the right, but the duty of the State to give 

 its birds the treatment they deserve." 



Mr. Chapman's paper is an excellent compendium of our present knowl- 

 edge of the economic relations of our birds, and the New York State 

 Forest, Fish, and Game Commission has shown an intelligent conception 

 of its duties and functions in placing before the public so important a 

 memoir in such an atta^active form. — J. A. A. 



^ State of New York | Forest, Fish and Game Commission | — | The 

 Economic Value of Birds | to the State | By | Frank M. Chapman | Associate 

 Curator of Mammalogy and Ornithology in the American | Museum of Nat- 

 ural History | [Seal] Albany | J. B. Lyon Company, Printers | 1903 — 4to, 

 pp. 1-66, 12 colored plates. September, 1903. 



