o REVIEW OF PERKINS' "BIRDS OF VERMONT." 



Of all the New England states Vermont without doubt has had 

 less competent observers, and therefore less published on its birds 

 than any other New England state. And there remains much 

 interesting work to be done, especially on the summer birds of its 

 mountains. In Coues' and Stearns' "New England Bird Life" I 

 find only a score of observations on Vermont birds, much fewer 

 even than given for the small state of Rhode Island, where there 

 has been little enough done compared with Maine, New Hamp- 

 shire, Massachusetts and Connecticut. 



TOPOGRAPHY. 



Prof. Perkins does not speak in his preface at all of the topo- 

 graphy of Vermont, omitting a most important consideration. It 

 is neither proper here, nor have I space to discuss Vermont's topo- 

 graphy, suffice it to say that the State lies between parallels 42 

 30' and 45", and meridians 73 30' and 71 30'. Its northern 

 border is 90 miles wide, its southern 41, and its entire length is 

 158 miles. The Connecticut river forms its eastern boundary and 

 Lake Champlain (126 miles long and i to 15 broad) more than 

 the northern half of its western border. The Green Mountain 

 divide runs as a " ridge pole " longitudinally through its centre, 

 from which numerous water courses run southeast and southwest. 

 The State from its interior situation has no seacoast, though the 

 Connecticut and St. Lawrence rivers, and Lakes Champlain and 

 Memphremagog attract water birds to its borders. Its lowlands 

 average from 200 to 500 feet above sea level, and its highest moun- 

 tain, Mount Mansfield, is 4,364 feet in altitude. There are five 

 other mountains in the State over 4,000 feet, and twelve over 3,500. 



SILVA AND FLORA. 



These also very important topics have been overlooked by Prof. 

 Perkins and are in any length outside the scope of this review. 

 The mountains generally are covered with spruce forests (Picea 

 rubra), though the alder (Alnus alnobetula) is also common, while 

 in the lower altitudes the most abundant growths are the paper and 

 yellow birch (Betula lutea and papyriferd) , beech (Fagus ameri- 

 canus}, sugar, mountain and striped maple (Acer saccharum, spi- 



