NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 859 
subject being quite unimportant and not very trustworthy, the 
best perhaps being Mr. McIlwraith’s ‘ Birds of Ontario.’ Canada, 
in fact, has done nothing hitherto for Ornithology, and even the 
Reports of the Geological Survey do not help us in this direction, 
While we know in a general way what species occur there, and 
something of their distribution, many problems of much interest 
in relation to North American birds can only be settled satisfac- 
torily by means of extensive field-work and large series of 
specimens collected in the great regions north of the United 
States. It is to be hoped, and indeed expected, that for this 
research Mr, Chamberlain’s book will pave the way. He has 
furnished a carefully prepared Catalogue of such birds as are 
known with certainty to occur in Canada, and although for the 
sake of brevity he has omitted all synonyms, and even descrip- 
tions of species, some useful notes are given upon nearly every 
bird mentioned. We are not sure that it was wise to omit 
descriptions of size and general coloration, which might be-very 
briefly noted, for, although assuredly such information is to be 
found in many excellent text-books on North American birds, 
travellers and collectors as arule are not disposed to carry many 
books about with them, and to find what they want in a handy 
volume—say double the size of Mr. Chamberlain’s Catalogue— 
would be a great boon. 
The object of the present work, as stated by the author 
in his Preface, is to bring together the names of all the birds 
that have been discovered within the boundaries of the Dominion, 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and north to the Arctic Ocean ; 
to present these in the system of nomenclature and in the 
sequence now generally adopted by American ornithologists, and 
to give (briefly) the geographical distribution of each species. 
The book is nicely and clearly printed on good paper, and is 
a decidedly welcome addition to ornithological literature. 
In the ‘Systematic Table of Canadian Birds,’ by the same 
author, printed on larger paper, and on one side of the page only, 
we are enabled to see at a glance the exact position which any 
given species occupies in the scheme of classification, the 
headings of the columns—which extend across a very wide 
page—being “ Family,” ‘‘ Subfamily,” “Genus,” “‘ Subgenus,” 
‘‘ Species,” “Subspecies” (if any), and “‘ English Name.” The 
sportsman, for example, who may desire to know what “ game 
