Book Reviews 



A History of the Birds of Colorado, by William Lutley Sclat- 

 er, M. A. (Oxon), M. B. O. U., Hon. M. A. O. U., and recently 

 director at the Colorado College Museum. Witherby & Co., 326 

 High Holborn, London, 1912. Price $5.00. American agents, 

 Stechert & Co., West 20th St., New York. Pp. XXIV-h576. 

 Sixteen text figures. 



This work is unusual in being prepared by an Englishman 

 who had enjoyed only a brief residence in Colorado. It forms a 

 handsome octavo volume illustrated by excellent half tones from 

 photographs by R. B. Rockwell, E. R. Warren, L. J. Hersey and 

 H. W. Nash. A contour map of Colorado and a frontispiece 

 portrait of Gen. William J. Palmer are included. The Aiken 

 "Collection of Colorado Birds and the Literature of Colorado 

 Ornithology" form the basis for the work. 



The text consists principally of the following: (1) a taxinom- 

 ic treatment of the birds of the state with keys even for the orders 

 as well as for smaller groups; and (2) short accounts of the hab- 

 its, distribution, abundance, and time of occurrence for each 

 species. There is a full bibliography in which the years are ab- 

 breviated without even an apostrophe to indicate the digits omit- 

 ted. The introduction contains a few paragraphs on the physical 

 features of the state and lists of birds arranged according to 

 the time of their occurrence and according to verbical distri- 

 bution. 



It is unfortunate that a book involving so much work and 

 expense for its publication should be marred by a large amount 

 of bad English and by rather poor proof-reading. However the 

 book should be useful to Colorado bird students in spite of these 

 shortcomings and occasional bits of misinformation; and it looks 

 well on library shelves.- — R. M. Strong. 



The Life of the Plant, C. A. Timiriazeflf, Professor Emeritus, 

 Moscow University. Translated by Anna CheremetefT. 355 

 pages, 83 figures. $2.50 net. Longmans, Green & Co., 1912. 



One of the earliest extensive text-books of botany to advo- 

 cate a mechanistic conception of plant life was "The Life of 

 the Plant." Although the book was first issued in 1878, and 

 has passed through many editions in the Russian language, it has 

 just now been translated into the English language. Such chap- 

 ters as that on Science and Society, The Plant and the Animal, 



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