80 Recent Literature. 



Mr. Rowley here gives not only the literary history of the species, but 

 discusses its relationship to the Eiders. Although following Mr. A. New- 

 ton in placing it in the genus Somateria, he does it with some degree of 

 reservation. His paper is enriched with five plates, in which are figured 

 the sterna of all the ILiders {Somateria stelleri, S. spectahilis, and S. mollis- 

 sima), with that of the present species, and the bill and feet of this sjiecies 

 and of the common Eider. A beautifully colored plate is also devoted to 

 the illustration of the adult male, female, and young male. He has, 

 liowever, to lament his ignorance of the nest and eggs, of the nestling 

 plumage of both sexes, as well as of some of the subsequent immature 

 stages, and calls the attention of American ornithologists to the impor- 

 tance of securing a scientific examination of the body of any specimen 

 which the future may afford, notes of the color of the soft parts, and the 

 preservation of the skeleton. 



The paper also contains extracts from letters from Professors S. F. 

 Baird and the late James Orton, and Messrs. D. G. Elliot and George N. 

 Lawrence, concerning the recent occurrence of this bird along the Atlantic 

 coast of North America, and closes with a list of all the specimens known 

 to the author to be extant. These number only thirty-three, of which 

 about twenty are preserved in different collections in the United States, 

 and the remainder in European museums. About one half are adult 

 males, and most of the remainder adult females. The localities, so far as 

 known, are Long Island, New York, thirteen specimens ; Calais, Me., 

 two ; Halifax Harbor, one ; " Labrador," one, and one is recorded from 

 Delhi, Michigan ; eighteen in all, leaving fifteen from unknown localities. 

 — J. A. A. 



Streets's Notes on the Birds of Lower California and the 

 Hawaiian and Fanning Islands. — Dr. Thomes H. Streets's report of 

 his Natural History explorations made in connection with the United 

 States North Pacific Surveying Expedition of 1873-75* includes notes 

 on about fifty species of birds, of which rather more than one half were 

 collected on the coast of Lower California and adjoining portions of the 

 Mexican coast. The author acknowledges his indebtedness to Dr. Elliott 

 Coues, U. S. A., for the identification of the birds, and adds that he has 

 *' kindly furnished the notes accompanying that portion of the ornithological 

 collection from the Californian Peninsula." The collection contains two 

 specimens of Mr. Lawrence's rare Passerculus guttatus (known previously, 

 from a single specimen from San Jose del Cabo), which, though formerly 

 regarded as a variety of the P. rostratus, is here provisionally accepted as 



* Contributions to the Natural History of the Hawaiian and Fanning Islands 

 and Lower California, made in connection with the United States North Pacific 

 Sui-veying Expedition, 1873-75. By Thos. H. Streets, M. D., passed Assistant 

 Sui'geon, U. S. Navy. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, No. 7, 

 p. 172 (Birds, pp. 9-33), Washington, 1877. 



