180 Recently published Omitholoyical Works. 



California Fish and Game. 



[California Fish and Game. Conservation of Wild Life through 

 Education. Vol. i. nos. 1-4, 1914-1915.] 



This is a new magazine issued quarterly by the Cali- 

 fornia Fish and Game Commission, in order to endeavour 

 to educate the Californians, before it is too late, in the 

 matter of the conservjition of wild life. Many of the 

 articles deal with the game animals and the fishes, but there 

 are many notices of the increasing rarity of some of the 

 Californian birds, especially the Pigeons and Ducks. 

 Messrs. Griunell and Bryant enter a special plea for the 

 Wood Duck {Aix sponsa), with the exception perhaps of 

 the Chinese Mandarin, the most brilliantly coloured of all 

 the Ducks. Formerly it was abundant throughout Cali- 

 fornia, where it is practically a resident, only making a 

 slight north and south migratory movement each year. 

 Now it can hardly be included among Californian Game- 

 birds, it has become so scarce. Under the new Federal 

 game-law it has been afforded complete protection for five 

 years, and it is hoped that this may enable it to increase its 

 numbers throughout the State. 



Messager Ornithologique. 



[Messager Ornithologique. Cinquieme annee, 1914, Nos. 1 & 2.] 



Only the first two numbers of this Russian ornithological 

 periodical reached us last year. Probably the other two 

 were lost in the post at the beginning of the war ; but as 

 few copies of this journal reach England, it seems worth 

 while, at any rate, to give the principal contents of these 

 two numbers. 



The volume opens with an account of a collection of birds 

 made in the Caucasus in the summer of 1913 by Prof. Susch- 

 kin. It is written, as are all the contents of the journal, in 

 Russian, but has a German resume. Other articles by the 

 same author deal with the racial forms of Caccabis chukar, 

 with the possible occurrence of Cyanistes cyanus yenisseensis 

 in the neighbourhood of Kiev, with the Cuckoos of Turkestan, 



