lOA Recent TJfcratnre. [Jnnunry 



Belding's Land Birds of the Pacific District.'* — In tliis book, prepared 

 originally as a report to the Department of Agriculture upon the distribu- 

 tion and migration.s of the birds of the Pacific Coast, Mr. Bclding has 

 brought together his own field notes and those contributed bj a number 

 of other observers, and has added to them brief extracts from the litera- 

 ture relating to the region. In arranging this material under the heads 

 of the species, each contributor's quota is given hy itself in a short para- 

 graph headed by the locality and authority, and usually in the writer's 

 own words. Of course with such a system the literary result is often 

 fragmentary and disjointed, but in a work of reference this is sometimes 

 better than to give — as writers are too often tempted to do — a smootli 

 generalization beneath which it is impossible to distinguish the isolated 

 facts supporting it from the well-concealed gaps between them. 



Of course the accounts of most of the species are by no means complete. 

 This was indeed unavoidable in treating a region one fourth as large as 

 the United States, where observers have been so few and observations 

 have been seldom carried on continuously for any considerable length of 

 time. In spite of these drawbacks Mr. Belding has succeeded ingathering 

 a large amount of valuable material which will make his book an indis- 

 pensable one. It is to be regretted though that he did not have the as- 

 sistance of all the observers within the limits of his district and that he 

 did not compile all the reliable published records. 



Furthermore we are occasionally inclined to deplore his liberality in 

 admitting to the list some species of whose occurrence in the area under 

 consideration little or no evidence is adduced. 



But on the whole, although the book may not be faultless, it is one 

 that cannot fail to be of much service to all students of Pacific Coast 

 birds.— C. F. B. 



A Catalogue of the Birds of New Jersey. f — After an interval of twenty- 

 two years the Geological Survey of New Jersey again presents a Cata- 

 logue of the birds of the State. It might fairly be presumed that the ad- 

 vance made in the study of ornithology during this period would, in a 

 measure, be apparent in the list before us, but when we find that to the 

 numerous errors of Dr. Abbott's list, there have been added others of 

 equally unpardonable, if not now so glaring, a nature, it becomes obvious 

 that science will not be benefitted by this recent production. 



*Occasional Papers | of the | California | Academy of Sciences. | II. | | Land 



Birds I of the | Pacific District j by \ Lyman Belding. | San Francisco : | California 

 Academy of Sciences, | September, 1890. 8vo., pp. [iv,] 274. 



t Geological Survey of New Jersey. | | Final Report | of the | State (Geologist. | 



I Vol. II, j I Mineralogy. | Botany. | Zoology. | • | Trenton, N. J. | 



Printed by the John L. Murphy Publishing Company. | | 1890. | Descriptive 



Catalogue | of the Vertebrates of New Jersey, | (a revision of Dr. Abbott's Catalogue 

 of 1868). I Prepared by Julius Nelson. Ph. D. 



