ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 93 



make any material changes in my own views. Our ornithological 

 horizons have evidently not been the same, and consequently our 

 conclusions are not always in unison. He is welcome to his own 

 conjectures, inferences, and opinions, but I must be permitted to 

 retain my own, " H. A. P." to the contrary notwithstanding, until 

 he produces something of more weight than unsupported assertion. 



%tttnt ILiteratttrt, 



Birds of Southwestern Mexico. — Mr. George N. Lawrence has 

 recently published* his Report on the Birds of Southwestern Mexico, col- 

 lected by Professor Francis E. Sumichrast, under the auspices of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. The list embraces three hundred and twenty-one 

 species, with valuable and occasionally quite copious field-notes by the col- 

 lector. The paper is prefaced by several pages, by Professor Sumichrast, on 

 the character of the avian fauna of Southwestern Mexico, which contain 

 interesting generalizations respecting the distribution of the species. — 

 J. A. A. 



Jordan's Manual of Vetebrate ANiMALS.t — This work, says the 

 author, was written " to give collectors and students who are not specialists 

 a ready means of identifying the families, genera, and species of our Verte- 

 brate Animals. In deference to the uniform experience of botanists, and 

 in view of the remarkable success achieved by Dr. Coues, in the applica- 

 tion of the method to Ornithology, the author has adopted the system of 



artificial keys Use has been freely made of every available source 



of information, and it is bebeved that the present state of our knowledge is 

 fairly represented." The task the author has here attempted seems to have 

 been carefully done, and the work will doubtless prove of great value 

 to the class for which it has been prepared. It indicates thorough ac- 

 quaintance with the literature of the subjects treated, and well represents 

 the latest and most approved views respecting the classification and no- 



* Birds of Southwestern Mexico, collected by Francis E. Sumichrast. Pre- 

 pared by George N. Lawrence. Bull. U. S. National Museum, No. 4. Published 

 under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution. "Washington : Government 

 Printing-Office. 1876. 



t Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States, including the 

 District east of the Mississippi River, and north of North Carolina and Tennessee, 

 exclusive of Marine Species. By David Starr Jordan, M. S., M. D., etc. Chi- 

 cago : Jansen, McClurg, & Co. 1876. 12mo. pp. 342. Price, $2.00. 



