I 7° Recent Literature. 



names of several of our commoner species of birds has given place to 

 obscure ones of earlier date, the reasonableness of the change is in most 

 cases apparent, while in others the necessity is doubtful, and their adop- 

 tion will result rather from a desire for unanimity than from conviction 

 that the change was demanded or even desirable. 



As a general criticism we may note the tendency to a multiplicity 

 of genera, — a tendency from which there are already many signs of a 

 reaction. The average in the present catalogue is almost exactly two spe- 

 cies to a genus, but of course many of the genera have extralimital 

 species. With the reduction of so many forms formerly regarded as 

 specific to the rank of geographical races, and the consequent wider range 

 of variation admitted within specific groups, it would seem consistent to 

 reduce rather than increase the number of genera and to degrade many 

 of the so-called generic groups, if they must be retained at all, to the 

 rank of subgenera, and also preferable as tending to show with greater 

 precision the degree of relationship many of the so-called genera hold 

 ifiter sc. The course adopted by Dr. Coues in his "Key" and "Check 

 List," in reference to the genera of Wading and Swimming Birds, has 

 always seemed to us commendable, although of late repudiated, in prac- 

 tice at least, by Dr. Coues himself. 



That the end is not yet reached, either as regards additions to our 

 avian fauna or the status of some of the rarer and less well-known forms, 

 is evident (see, e. £-., the several papers in the last number of this Bulletin 

 by Mr. Brewster, in which new forms are added and the status of others 

 changed), and doubtless if a check list be prepared say in 1890 it will 

 differ widely from that now under consideration. Consistency even 

 already demands the recognition of several additional subspecific forms, 

 which we are surprised to see have been so long passed over, especially 

 among the birds of Florida, where the resident form of the Bluebird, the 

 Bluejay, the Red-winged Blackbird, the Meadow Lark, and the Yellow- 

 winged Sparrow are quite as well entitled to varietal recognition as many 

 that have already received this distinction. 



Passing now from the "Catalogue" to the "Appendix," which occupies 

 nearly as many pages as the catalogue itself, we find a most important 

 contribution to the historical phase of North American ornithology, and 

 one evincing most painstaking, laborious, and, we may well say, ex- 

 haustive research, so far as its scope extends, which is mainly a comparison 

 of the present status of the subject with that of 1859. The matter is 

 arranged in a series of twelve "tables," numbered a to /. These designate 

 (a) the species eliminated from the Catalogue of 1859, with indication of 

 the reason for each elimination ; (3) the "species or races " described or 

 added to the North American fauna since 1859, tne newly described forms 

 being indicated by the use of special type, while references are given 

 respectively to the place of first description or to the original record. 

 In this list are distinguished for the first time* Mniotilta varia borealis, 



* In these remarks the original and revised editions are treated as the same work. 



