732 Recently published Ornithological Works. [Hiis, 



Swarth on the Birds of the Stikine River, British Columbia. 



[Birds and Mammals of the Stikine river region of nortlievn British 

 Columbia and south-western Alaska. By H. S. Swarth. Univ. California 

 Publ. in Zool. vol. 24, 1922, pp. 125-314, 1 coloured plate, map, and 34 

 figs, in text.] 



In the summer of 1919^ between May and Septenaber, 

 Mr. Joseph Dixon and tlie author made an excursion to the 

 lower waters of the Stikine River, which, rising in northern 

 British Columbia and the eastern side of the Rocky 

 Mountains, pierces that chain in a deep canyon and flows 

 through the narrow strip of southern Alaska into the sea 

 near Wrangell between lat. 57° and 56° N. The locality is 

 an interesting one, as the fauna and flora of the country 

 east and west of the Rocky Mountains are very different. 

 The Sitkan district of south-west Alaska is characterized 

 by in-tense humidity and a relatively equable temperature, 

 and the country is mostly covered by dense coniferous 

 forest. On the other side of the range the climate is 

 characterized by very great extremes of heat and cold, 

 and the rainfall is so small that it is necessary to irri- 

 gate cultivated land. The problem studied by Mr. Swarth 

 was how this sudden change of climate affected mammal- 

 and bird-life, and he naturally found that the faunas of 

 the two areas were very different. The paper, which is a 

 long one, contains an itinerary and a description of the 

 localities visited, the topography of the region and its 

 bearing on animal life, and the zonal and faunal position 

 of the Stikine Valley. Then follows the annotated list of 

 the mammals and birds met with and obtained ; the latter 

 number 127 species. Perhaps the most interesting obser- 

 vations are in regard to the Bohemian Waxwing, Bombycilla 

 garrxda pallidicej)s. Very little is known about the nesting 

 of this bird in America, but Mr. Swarth and Mr. Dixon 

 found eight nests with eggs and young birds, and the 

 coloured plate forming the frontispiece depicts the nestlings 

 just out of the nest with the waxy tips to the secondaries 

 already in place. 



