248 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 816 



amount with different species, including in 

 many instances very full biographies. The 

 references are restricted to the citation of 

 the place of original description of the 

 species, of DeKay's work, and the second 

 edition of the A. 0. U. Check-List. As the 

 later supplements to the Check-List are not 

 cited, in cases where the nomenclature of the 

 second edition has since been changed, the 

 names adopted would seem to be not those of 

 the Check-List but of the author's own selec- 

 tion. After the names a glossary is added, 

 giving the derivation and accent of the tech- 

 nical names, a feature too rarely found in 

 works of this character. The eccentric use, 

 or non-use, of capital initials in the English 

 bird names and in many geographical names 

 is doubtless not the preference of the author. 



A notable feature of the work is the illus- 

 trations, which comprise 42 colored plates, il- 

 lustrating 132 species, from drawings by 

 Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and a large number of 

 half-tones in the test. Fuertes is here seen 

 at his best. The grouping in some of the 

 plates is excellent; in others too many figures 

 are crowded upon a single plate, an exigency 

 for which he is doubtless not to be held re- 

 sponsible. Again, the backgrounds in some 

 cases detract from the general artistic effect, 

 and might often have been omitted as a need- 

 less and inharmonious element of the picture. 

 The color printing obviously does injustice to 

 the drawings, the dull reds presenting a mo- 

 notonous sameness not warranted by the tints 

 given the birds by nature. Yet with these 

 drawbacks the plates are effective aids in rec- 

 ognizing the species depicted. The poses and 

 attitudes are in most cases admirable and the 

 structural details scientifically correct. For 

 the artist is not only an exceptionally gifted 

 draughtsman, but an ornithologist as well, and 

 a trained and keen observer. 



The text illustrations are numerous and 

 appropriate, varying from details of structure 

 to full-length figures, some of them from na- 

 ture, as in the case of young birds, nests and 

 haunts, and others from some of Audubon's 

 plates or from moimted birds, usually New 

 York state specimens of rare species, as in the 



case of the scaled petrel, white swan, man-'f- 

 war-bird, white-faced glossy ibis and others. 



The work is well-printed, from large, clear 

 type, with few typographical errors^ (on p. 

 22 and in the index for Linnett read Sen- 

 nett!), but is ponderous to handle, the half- 

 tones in the text necessitating the use of 

 heavily coated paper, thus insuring rapid de- 

 terioration for a book worthy of long life. 

 From the point of view of good book-making 

 the work is sadly defective, there being, for 

 example, no list of the plates or of the test 

 illustrations, and no clue to what species or 

 how many are figured without looking through 

 the text and the plates. The eighty-odd 

 sheets of inserts are bound in so deep that the 

 middle columns are difiieult to get at to read, 

 and are neither paged nor consecutively n\un- 

 bered, but are arranged in " sections " num- 

 bered 1 to 4 with 15 to- 20 " parts " in each, 

 with the legend half concealed by the method 

 of binding. The regular pagination of the 

 text runs to page 390, with then a gap to page 

 474, on which the index begins, the gap being 

 filled by the plates, each with an explanatory, 

 unpaged leaf, evidently counted as two pages. 



From the letter of Director John M. Clarke 

 to Commissioner Andrew S. Draper (see p. 

 3), the purpose of the present work is "to 

 bring together the increments to knowledge 

 [of New York birds] during the long period 

 which has elapsed [since 1844] without active 

 interest therein on the part of the State." To 

 say that it faithfully fulfills this purpose is 

 but just credit to both author and artist. 



J. A. Allen 

 Amebican Museum of Natubal History, 

 New Yoek City 



Mineralogie de la France et de ses Colonies. 

 Tome Troisieme, 2e partie. A. Lacroix. 

 Librarie Polytechnique, Ch. Beranger, Edi- 

 teur, Eue des Saints-Peres, 15, Paris. 1909. 

 No less welcome than the appearance of the 



^ There is a curious slip on p. 76, in citing a 

 paper by George N. Lawrence, published in 1866, 

 under a wrong title and ascribing its publication 

 to a society that did not come into existence till 

 1878! 



