242 Recent Literature. 



It is my earnest hope and desire that my declaration may not provoke 

 further controversy or correspondence. — Henry D. Minot. 



[Mr. Minot has expressed his peculiar views with such naivete, that his 

 letter may, in a general way, be taken as its own answer. It would be 

 gratuitous at this late day to essay any elaborate defence of the established 

 systems of work which he rejects, but there are certain important state- 

 ments resting on his authority, which it is fitting to reconsider in the 

 light of their author's avowed methods and principles. Many of our 

 readers will remember the very complimentary notice of the " Land and 

 Game Birds of New England" which appeared in a former volume of this 

 Bulletin : the high authority from which it emanated undoubtedly gave it 

 much weight and possibly silenced the other critics ; at least, the book 

 has never been reviewed on its merits, and things which should have been 

 severely censured, have passed nearly unchallenged up to the present 

 time. The precedent is too dangerous to be allowed to stand. 



A few prominent examples will suffice to point the moral of what I 

 have to say. 



In the "Land and Game Birds" Mr. Minot speaks of finding near 

 Boston such nests as the Northern Water Thrush's, the Cape May War- 

 bler's, the Blackburnian Warbler's, the Short-eared Owl's and the Pigeon 

 Hawk's. Now it might be reasonably supposed that the importance ot 

 any one of these discoveries would have called for the very strictest iden- 

 tification. Yet the text furnishes no assurance of this. On the contrary, 

 the author does not even tell us that the birds were seen and in no instance 

 is any evidence whatever, direct or circumstantial, advanced in support of 

 their assumed identity. The descriptions of the nests and eggs, too, are so 

 brief and general that they give little satisfaction. It may well be doubted 

 if any of our older ornithologists would care to risk his reputation on such 

 unsupported but entirely positive statements. Of course the sincerity of 

 Mr. Minot's convictions is not called in question ; but the school boy whose 

 collection embraces alleged eggs of every species of Sparrow that breeds 

 from Maine to Florida is equally sincere, though the parentage of most 

 of his specimens may generally be safely referred to a few of the common 

 kinds. The parallel may seem a harsh one, but the basis of identification 

 is essentially the same in the two cases : viz., individual opinion. 



Now we fancy that there are many persons besides Mr. Minot whose 

 feelings often revolt at the thought of killing a harmless and confiding lit- 

 tle bird. But if the importance of the case renders this necessary no one 

 ought to hesitate. A bird's life should count as nothing against the verifi- 

 cation of a rare nest or the establishment of a new fact. A sombre-plum- 

 aged Sparrow cannot always be recognized as it skulks through the 

 undergrowth, or the females of many of our Warblers separated with 

 certainty while sitting half-buried in their nests or flitting among the 

 foliage. The collector may satisfy himself, especially if his imagination 

 is allowed to supply some of the blanks, but he must not expect to satisfy 

 others who know by experience the difficulties of such cases. If the nest in 

 question is common and well known, especially if the eggs are in them- 



