64 Recent Literature. [January 
the way of initial letters and tail-pieces for each chapter, and with full- 
page plates redundant in paint. The book is apparently intended as an 
ornamental gift-book for the holiday season. The text is no discredit 
to the eminent author whose name appears on the titlepage, and his 
biographies of the forty species of European birds treated form 
entertaining and instructive matter for the general reader, for whom they 
were doubtless intended, rather than for professional ornithologists. Mr. 
Robert’s contribution of plates and tail-pieces will scarcely bear criticism 
from the technical standpoint, most of them having been too evidently 
copied from rather badly stuffed museum specimens, including their de- 
fects, with a back-ground which may be called striking rather than art- 
istically effective. Doubtless the book will not lack admirers among 
the class it is intended to entertain.—J. A. A. 
Birds of Nova Scotia.* — This annotated list is the latest contribution 
to the bird lore of the peninsular Province, by one whose name is already 
known in that connection. Mr. Downs has given us ‘‘as the result of 
sixty-six years of practical field work,’ a list of 240 species of birds, of 
which 4 are added on authority, 3 on the grounds of probability, and 3 
without a word of comment, reducing those presumably observed by the 
writer to 230. The number seems very small, as it would be an easy 
matter to name over twenty additional species that certainly should have 
been found; indeed reference to the published papers of another Acadian 
naturalist (Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin) shows that nearly a dozen species have 
been omitted in the Birds of Prey and the Shore-birds alone. It is diffi- 
cult to understand why Mr. Downs should leave out such species as the 
Wheatear, Bicknell’s Thrush, Ipswich Sparrow, etc., since he was not 
confining himself to his own personal observations. The last-named 
omission is the more strange since the species is probably without excep- 
tion the most peculiar and characteristic of the whole Acadian avifauna. 
Our author apparently not realizing that the only value of such a list 
must come from its explicitness and accuracy, records without qualifica- 
tion such remarkable occurrences as those of Plegadis autumnalis, Anas 
penelope, Ardea cerulea, etc., omitting the usual data and references, 
without which the records have little, if any value. This carelessness 
with regard to localities and dates neutralizes the value of what might 
otherwise have been a most interesting series of records. A notable 
example is his brief reference to the finding of three ‘‘Great Auks”’; doubt- 
less the facts have been recorded elsewhere, but no careful writer would 
think of embodying them in his work without giving the proper refer- 
ences. Similar remarks will apply to his notes on the Labrador Duck, 
Purple Gallinule, Blue Grosbeak, and several other species. 
His method of indicating the breeding species (by number in an appen- 
dix) isa great mistake; the remarks that are supposed to be thus tabu- 
*Birds of Nova Scotia. By Andrew Downs, M. Z. S. Edited by Harry Piers. 
Proc. and Trans. Nova Scotia Inst. Nat. Sci. VII, pt. ii, 1888, pp. 142-178. 
