Recent Ornithological Publications. 347 



fairly be compared with the ' Magazine of Natural History ' as 

 originated by the late Mr. Loudon nearly forty years ago, which, 

 as we all know, has by a series of gradual modifications become 

 the leading biological journal in this country, having experience 

 every now and then of a pretty severe struggle for existence, 

 occasionally swallowing and incorporating a rival, but more often 

 "improving it off creation/' Things move faster among our 

 cousins ; and it will probably not by any means take forty years 

 to see natural-history literature represented in the United States 

 by more and perhaps better journals than we now have in 

 England. However, letting futurity alone and acting "in the 

 living present/' as the American poet advises us, we wish to 

 hold out our hand in welcome of the new magazine. Its first 

 number contains some " Winter Notes of an Ornithologist," 

 by Mr. J. A. Allen, treating of the birds which pass that season 

 in New England, where, however, only fourteen can be said to 

 be at all common — a very great difference from the state of things 

 in the old country, where the same number can be seen almost 

 at once in many a garden or stack-yard of a winter's day — and 

 affording a still more striking contrast to the number of New- 

 England " Birds of Spring " (forming the subject of a subsequent 

 paper by the same author), of which there are no less than one 

 hundred and ninety entitled to be called " common." Mr. G. A. 

 Boardman, whom we know to be an accurate observer, notices 

 (p. 53) the curious fact that he finds on the coast of Maine the 

 Black Guillemot {Uria grylle) " in full black plumage all winter." 

 Dr. Brewer, of whom we are glad to hear after a very long 

 silence, has a paper (pp. 113-123) on " Some Errors regarding 

 the Habits of our Birds," which is well worth reading. He 

 speaks with great impartiality of mistakes committed by Wilson, 

 Audubon, and Nuttall. The first described the nest and eggs 

 of Carduelis tristis in such a manner as to render it possible he 

 had before him those of Polioptila carulea, and seems to have 

 been equally incorrect in his account of Spiza cyunea and Eu- 

 spiza americana. The last confounded Empidonax minimus with 

 E. acadicus in a very singular way. Dr. Brewer, like the rest 

 of us, has shortcomings to confess, and a iaw of these are very 

 freely acknowledged ; but we must say that our worthy friend 



