1 91 8.] Recently published Ornithological Worka. 327 



Mr. Hanna, who has for some time past devoted himself 

 to the elucidation of the nesting- habits of the White-throated 

 Swift (^Aeronmctes melanoleucus), believes that under certain 

 circumstances this species, wliich is supposed to go south in 

 winter, hibernates in the crevices of the cliffs where it nests. 

 He gives certain evidence to support his statement, which, 

 if provedj is of great interest, as it revives a belief widely 

 held in former days even in regard to the Swallow in 

 England. 



The effects of a great hurricane which devastated Corpus 

 Christi, a town on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, is related 

 b\f Mr. R. A. Sell. It chieHy affected the Pelicans and 

 Purple Gallinules, which were destroyed in hundreds. 



Mr. Oberholser contributes a review oi the Blue Jays of 

 the genus Aphelocoma, and solves a problem which has long 

 puzzled taxonomists. Two forms of the group, A. cijanotis 

 and A. texana, were supposed to occur side by side in Texas. 

 This Mr. Oberholser shows is not the case, and the indi- 

 viduals supposed to be referable to the first-named species 

 are in reality the latter in fresh plumage. In another 

 contribution the same writer describes a new subspecies of 

 the Yellow-throated Warbler, Geothlypis beldingi goldmani, 

 from the central part of the peninsula of Lower California. 

 It differs from the typical form found in the extreme south 

 of the same peninsula in its much paler coloration. 



One of the earliest scientific travellers to visit California 

 was the Itnlian Dr. P. E. Botta (1802-1870), who spent a 

 year in the State in 1827 and 1828. Mr. T. S. Palmer 

 gives some account of this naturalist and archaeologist. 

 Some of the birds he obtained were afterwards described 

 by Lesson, while his name is commemorated in Saxicola 

 bottce, which was named after him by Bonaparte, but which 

 came from Abyssinia, not California. 



The Osprey {Pandion halia'etus carolinensis) is far from 

 uncommon in the Yellowstone Park, and Mr. M. P. Skinner, 

 who estimates that about a hundred and twenty pairs bred 

 there regularly, gives a very fine photograph of a pinnacle 

 rock, on the summit of which a pair of these birds have 



