Vol i907" IV ] Recent Literature. 451 



paper published in January, 1906/ but a few further changes are here 

 made, especially in nomenclature, where Myiochanes replaces Contopus 

 and Procnias supplants the familiar name Casmorinchos (or Chasmor- 

 hynchus, as usually written), etc., and original spellings of many names 

 replace the emended forms of purists. Planesticus takes the place of 

 Merula, but Galeoscoptes remains. The departures from the A. O. U. 

 Check-List names of North American birds are, however, few, and have 

 mostly already been adopted by the A. O. U. Committee, though not yet 

 announced. 



The present volume is marked by the same painstaking bibliographic 

 research and attention to details that so eminently characterize its predeces- 

 sors in the series, and we welcome it with the same sense of gratitude to 

 the author for his invaluable contribution to systematic and faunistic 

 ornithology. The thirty-odd plates of structural details, drawn mostly 

 by J. H. Hendley of Washington, are an important adjunct to the text. — 

 J. A. A. 



Townsend and Allen's 'Birds of Labrador.' — This important summary 2 

 of present knowledge of the birds of Labrador is based, the authors inform 

 us, on examinations of all the literature on the subject they have been able 

 to find, and on a visit by them to the Labrador coast in the summer of 

 1906. The paper includes an account of the topography of Labrador, its 

 faunal areas and bird migration; its ornithological history and the bird and 

 egg destruction that have disgraced its coast and inlands, followed by an 

 annotated list of its birds, and a bibliography. The historical part begins 

 with George Cartwright's ' Journal,' published in 1792, and mentions in more 

 or less detail the visits of other naturalists down to the ' Neptune ' expedi- 

 tion of 1903-1904, including the journeys of Audubon (1833), Storer (1849), 

 Biyant (1860), Coues (1860), Verrill (1861), Packard (1860 and 1864), 

 Stearns (1875, 1880, 1882), Turner (1882-1884), and others, some of whom 

 barely touched its southern coast. After recounting the barbarous havoc 

 of the 'eggers' and the wholesale slaughter of geese and other waterfowl 

 for their flesh or feathers, it is asked "What will be the result of all this if 

 nothing be done to stop the destruction?" The answer is obvious, — the 

 entire depopulation of the water bird resorts of the Labrador coast and 

 adjacent islands. 



In the systematic list 259 species and subspecies are considered, of which 

 two are extinct, and 44 are regarded as having been wrongly attributed 

 to Labrador, leaving 213 as authenticated Labrador species. A tabular 

 statement gives the approximate number of birds seen by the authors in 



1 Some Observations concerning the American Families of Oligomyodian Pas- 

 seres. By Robert Ridgway. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., XIX, pp. 7-16, Jan. 1906. 



2 Birds of Labrador. By Charles W. Townsend, M. D., and Glover M. Allen. Proc. 

 Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., Vol. XXXIII, No. 7, pp. 277-428, pi. xxix (map). July, 1907. 



