1919-] Recently puhlishtd OrnithulogicalWoi'ks. 349 



attention tu game-birds ; moreover; they move to the 

 southern prairie districts and do much damage to the 

 game-birds and the poultry-runs. 



'I'he other Hawks, including the Buzzards, usually knov\n 

 as Red-tails, live chiefly on Gophers, those little fossorial 

 burrowing rat-like animals which do enormous damage 

 to agriculture, and these birds should be most strictly 

 preserved in the opinion of Mr. Taverner. 



Wetmoi'es recent papers. 



[Duck sickness in Utah. By Alexander Wetiuove. U.S. T)ept. Agr. 

 Bull. no. 072, 1918, pp. 1-25; 4 pis.] 



[Birds observed near Mico, Central Oklahoma. Id., Wilson Bull. 

 Chicago, no. 102, 1918, pp. 2-16.] 



[The birds of Desecheo Island, Porto Bico. Id., Auk, xxxv. 1918, 

 pp. 333-340,] 



[Description of a new subspecies of the Little Yellow lUtteru from 

 the Philippine Islands. Id., Proc. Biol. Soc. AVashington, vol. 31, 1918, 

 pp. 83, 84.] 



[On the anatomy of Nyctibius, with notes on allied birds. Id., Proc. 

 U.S. Nat. Mus. vol. 64, 1918, pp. 577-586 ; 7 text-figs.] 



[Bones of birds collected by Theodoor de Booy from Kitchen Midden 

 deposits in the Islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix. Id., ibid, 

 pp. 513-522.] 



For the last eight or uiue years the wild-ducks aud other 

 shore-birds of Great Salt Lake in Utah, as well as those of 

 some o£ the other western lakes, have suffered very severely 

 from a mysterious disease, and for three years jVlr. Wetmore 

 was detailed by the Biological Purvey at Washington to 

 investigate it. The birds suffered most during the summer 

 season, at a time when the rivers running into the lake were 

 at their lowest, and the symptoms of the disease indicated in 

 a large part, a paralysis of the nerve-centres controlling the 

 muscular system. The birds perished by the ten thousand, 

 and lay dead in heaps along the marshes of the lower 

 channels of the rivers. 



After considerable investigation Mr. Wetmore came to 

 the conclusion that the trouble was due, not to any bacterial 

 or protozoan disease as was for long supposed, but to the 



