Recent Literature. 179 



mology, and pronunciation of all the scientific words, — a thing never done 

 in this country before. — Eds.] 



Gentry's Nests and Eggs of the Birds of Pennsylvania. — 

 Part. I of this new enterprise, published last April, has reached us, con- 

 taining descriptions, with a colored plate, of the nests and eggs of Ampelk 

 cedrorum and Contopus virens. It is designed as a popular work, to be 

 characterized by scientific excellence combined with moderate price. The 

 text of this number is meritorious, and the plates are not. It is, however, 

 too early to judge the character which the publication, should it proceed, 

 may assume ; we wish here to simply record the fact of the publication 

 of such a work. We are bound to add, however, that, as we assured the 

 intending author when he submitted to us his plans, there is no particular 

 raison d'etre in this case, and little prospect that the enterprise can success- 

 fully compete with the two of similar scope now in progress, — Ingersoll's, 

 and Jones and Shulze's. Should the author, as is most probable, have 

 any new facts of value and interest to communicate, they might properly 

 form papers in some scientific serial, or, preferably still, be incorporated 

 with a revised second edition of his excellent " Life Histories of the Birds 

 of Eastern Pennsylvania." It goes against our grain to wet-blanket any 

 ornithological endeavor, but we have no alternative in this case. — E. C. 



Oder's Camps in the Caribbees. — We have already had occasion 

 to notice in these pages several papers by Mr. Lawrence, in the Proceedings 

 of the National Museum and elsewhere, on the results of Mr. Ober's ex- 

 ploration of the Lesser Antilles, which was undertaken in 1876 under the 

 auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, for the special purpose of elucidating 

 the little known ornithology of those islands. We recur to the subject to call 

 attention to the work recently published by Lee and Shepard,* containing 

 ]VIr. Ober's own narrative of his experiences in the Caribbees in quest of 

 new and rare birds. The general text introduces a good deal of ornitho- 

 logical matter, which will be found of interest and value, and the ap- 

 pendix is entirely devoted to this subject. It gives Mr. Lawrence's sum- 

 mary list of the species, 128 in number, collected by Mr. Ober, with the 

 geographical distribution of each, in tabular form, and also reproduces the 

 original descriptions of all the new species discovered by the energetic and 

 successful explorer. — E. C. 



Roberts on the Convolution of the Trachea in the Sand- 

 hill AND Whooping Cranes. — In a paper f of seven pages 'Mi-. Rob- 

 erts has given an admirable presentation of the tracheal characters of our 

 two larger species of Cranes, illustrated with cuts. In Grits canadensis 



* Camps in the Caribbees : The Adventures of a Naturalist in the Lesser An- 

 tilles. By Frederick A. Ober. Boston: Lee and Sliepard. New York: Charles 

 T.Dillingham. 18S0. 8vo. pp. xviii, 366, with 34 illust. 



t The Convolutions of the Trachea in the Sandhill and Whooping Cranes. 

 American Naturalist, Vol. XIV, February, 1880, pp. 108 -114, Figg. 



