107 



and the great lakes which he styled as " ^yours and ours." They 

 appeared to his view the more beautiful in contrast with a lake visited 

 by the Institute last year which he considered " the incarnation of sel- 

 fishness," receiving everything aiid giving nothing, not even fruitful 

 enough for the support of fish or to feed the gulls hovering over it — 

 Great Salt Lake. 



The opinion of Canada carried away by the membei-s of the Insti- 

 tute is, judging from letters written by several of them since their 

 departure, most appreciative, and it is in the range of probability that 

 in 1891 they will again visit Canada to hold their annual meeting, pro- 

 bably on the shores of Lake Superior. 



The readers of the Ottawa Naturalist will be pleased to hear 

 that, since the meeting, Mr. H. Beaumont Small, one of our members 

 and the President of the Ottawa Scientific and Literary Society, has 

 been elected a member of the Association in recognition of his writing 

 !upo:i mineralogical subjects. J. F. 



:o: 



BOOK NOTICES. 



The English Sparrow {Passer domesticus) in North America, 

 Especially in its Relations to Agriculture. By Walter 

 B. Barrows, Assistant Ornithologist, U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture. Washington, 1889. 



This is Bulletin No. 1 of the Division of Economic Ornithology 

 and Mammalogy, of the United States Department of Agriculture, pre 

 pared under the direction of Dr. C. Hart Merriam, the Ornithologist of 

 the Department. It embodies the results of investigations of the much 

 discussed English Sparrow question in North America, carried on prin- 

 cipally in the year 1886, for the purpose of determining whether the 

 relations of this bird to agriculture were beneficial or otherwise. 



Part I contains summaries of the evidence which has been collected 

 by the Department, and which is printed at length in Part II. This 

 is considered and carefully weighed in all its bearings, and the con- 

 clusions arrived at are systematically and conveniently ari'anged. A 

 short histoi'y is first given of the introduction of Passer domesticus, into 



