140 Recent Literature. 



an open window in Boylston Street, Boston, and there remains a caged 

 bird. But had it been one before ? Probably yes, but possibly no. It 

 had not the appearance or action of one. Yet so probable was it that it 

 had escaped from confinement that it was not thought worthy of a record. 

 The great merits of Mr. Allen's lists are that they furnish a succinct yet 

 thorough history of all claims, of whatever nature, to be recognized as 

 Massachusetts birds. Its five divisions well present the character of these 

 claims, and show why certain names should not be received. The com- 

 pleteness of the references and data, and the numerous additions, giving 

 new announcements or unrecorded captures, is also quite remarkable. 

 As a matter of course, here and there one or two interesting captures may 

 have escaped his notice, e. g. Syrnium cmereum, Lynn, 1872 (History 

 of North American Birds, III, p. 32), while others of which there is no 

 record, and which he could not know, as the capture at Swampscott, Au- 

 gust 27, 1876, of Tringa bairdi, male, by Mr. Wm. A. Jeffries, and that 

 of a Short-tailed Tern (Hydrochelidon niger, Saunders) at Nantucket, Augvfet 

 8, 1877, by Mr. Geo. H. Mackay, both Specimens being in the possession 

 of their captors. That these exceptions are so very few attest at once the 

 diligence of the author and the completeness of his list. Thirty-five North 

 American birds have been added to the Massachusetts list since 1867. 

 — T. M. B. 



Mr. H. Saunders on the Sternin^.* — Having had opportunities of 

 examining interesting types of various real or supposed species of Sternince, 

 the author has anticipated in a measure the monograph of the Laridce 

 upon which he has long been engaged, by giving the gist of his observations 

 in the present revision of the subfamily /SYernmce, which may be regarded as 

 the continuation of papers already published in the same periodical on the 

 Larince and Lestridince. We have here in condensed and convenient shape 

 the main results of a protracted study, representing much laborious and 

 faithful application ; the author has evidently worked with care, and fully 

 availed himself of the unusual facilities he has enjoyed. His examination 

 of the types of various obscure species has enabled him to clear up a good 

 many points hitherto doubtful, and make an exhiljit which bears its rec- 

 ommendation on its face. I regard the paper as the most authoritative one 

 we possess on this subject, being prepared, under exceptionally favorable 

 circumstances, by a skilful ornithologist who has made the present family 

 a particular study. 



The author, as it seems to me judiciously, greatly reduces the number 

 of genera which have been wildly proposed for birds of this subfamily^ 

 Though I formerly admitted a somewhat larger number, in view of my 

 studies of our representatives of the group, than he now recognizes, I freely 



* On the Sterninse, or Terns, with Descriptious of three new Species. B^"^ 

 Howard Saunders, F.L.S., F.Z.S. Proe. Zo5l. Soc, 1876, pp. 638-672, PI. LXI. 



