﻿Book News and Reviews 



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son, and a ' Contribution to the Ornithol- 

 ogy of South Carolina,' by A. T. Wayne. 

 The last article is particularly rich in care- 

 ful observations on rare species, and infor- 

 mation regarding the Seaside Sparrows, the 

 Marsh Wrens and others. P. T. Coolidge's 

 4 Notes on the Screech Owl ' are an interest- 

 ing contribution to the life-history of the 

 bird, while J. C. Wood tells of 'Autumn 

 Warbler Hunting' in Michigan and B. S. 

 Bowdish of ' Some Breeding Warblers of 

 Demarest, N. J.' The Warblers seem to 

 have been particularly unfortunate in their 

 housekeeping, judging by the story of mis- 

 haps and desertions. From a human point 

 of view, the nesting of a Black-throated 

 Green Warbler in a skunk cabbage would 

 seem to be unfortunate as well as most un- 

 usual. 



Mr. Sage's report of the twenty-third 

 annual meeting of the A. O. U. shows the 

 society to be flourishing, and we note that 

 'The Auk ' has come out in new type. 



An item by Mr. Meeker on the inter- 

 breeding of the Golden-winged and Blue- 

 winged Warbler should stimulate further 

 field observations, from which more may be 

 learned regarding the vexed questions of 

 hybridization than from pages of theorizing 

 over dry skins. — J. D., Jr. 



The Condor. — The leading article in the 

 November number of 'The Condor' con- 

 tains an interesting account by Mr. Robert 

 Ridgway of 'A Winter with the Birds in 

 Costa Rica.' During a stay of nearly six 

 months he traversed the country from ocean 

 to ocean and from the lowlands to the sum- 

 mit of Irazu, 11,500 feet above sea-level. 

 The principal places visited, the character- 

 istic birds, and the difficulties of traveling 

 and collecting inthe tropics are all described 

 as fully as the limits of the article permit. 

 Mr. Ridgway declares that one of the 

 strongest impressions of the trip was a reali- 

 zation of the fragmentary character of our 

 present knowledge of tropical bird-life. 

 Notwithstanding the fact that the birds of 

 Costa Rica have been studied more than 

 those of any other region of Centra! or South 

 America, less than one-third of the country 

 has thus far been visited by naturalists and 

 the possibilities of thorough exploration of 



the tropics still offer unusual opportunities 

 to enthusiastic young ornithologists. 



Among the articles devoted to Pacific 

 Coast birds should be mentioned the con- 

 tinuation of Finley's illustrated paper, 

 'Among the Sea Birds off the Oregon Coast,' 

 and also descriptions of a new Nighthawk 

 and Towhee. The Pacific Nighthawk 

 {Chordeiles virginanus hesperis) is de- 

 scribed by Grinnell from a specimen col- 

 lected at Bear Lake in the San Bernardino 

 Mountains, Cal., and the Rocky Mountain 

 Towhee (Pipilo maculatus montanus) is 

 by Swarth from two types from the Huachuca 

 mountains, Arizona. From an examina- 

 tion of a series of about 150 specimens of 

 Towhees from various points in California, 

 Arizona and New Mexico, Mr. Swarth 

 concludes that two of the forms recently de- 

 scribed, Pipilo maculatus atratus and 

 P. m. falcifer, are not sufficiently distinct 

 from P. in. megalonyx to warrant rec- 

 ognition by name. 



An interesting account of ' The American 

 Crossbill in Montana ' is given by Silloway , 

 who collected a nest containing four eggs 

 on July 27, 1905, in the Flathead forests. 

 He also records the occurrence of the 

 White-winged Crossbill in summer in the 

 same region. Vrooman describes the ' Dis- 

 covery of a Second Egg of the Black Swift,' 

 collected with the old bird on a cliff near 

 Santa Cruz, California, on July 9, 1905, and 

 Taylor describes a nest and six eggs of the 

 Vaux Swift, collected by Franklin J. Smith, 

 in Humboldt county, California, in a hollow 

 stub not more than two feet from the ground. 



With the present number, which concludes 

 the seventh volume, Walter K. Fisher re- 

 tires from the editorship of ' The Condor,' 

 after a service of three years and an associa- 

 tion with the editorial staff since 1901. 

 Under his energetic and successful manage- 

 ment each volume has shown a distinct 

 advance in the progress of the journal, a 

 record which we trust will be maintained by 

 his successor, Joseph Grinnell. — T. S. P. 



The Wilson Bulletin.— The fourth 

 number of this quarterly, concluding its 

 seventeenth volume, contains a sketch of the 

 New Jersey Pine Barrens and their bird- 

 life, by Chreswell J Hunt; 'Additions and 



