Book News and Reviews 



325 



the very things that Mr. Huxley would 

 now have on cards, but naturally no 

 single observer has opportunity for all 

 sorts of observations. 



R. C. Murphy writes on the 'Anatidae 

 of South Georgia,' of which there are two 

 species — a Teal and a Goose introduced 

 from the Falkland Islands in 1910; W. 

 De W. Miller advocates a new classifica- 

 tion of the Scoters into two genera, Oidemia 

 and Melanitla; and Dr. C. W. Townsend, 

 in 'Notes on the Eider' by Johan Beetz, 

 believes that, because of intergradation 

 of characters, borealis and dresseri should 

 both be considered races of mollissima. 



With 'Notes on the Birds of the Elk 

 Mountain Region, Colorado,' E. R. War- 

 ren has some good photographs of the 

 country, also of the nest of Wright's Fly- 

 catcher and of Macgillivray's Warbler. 

 H. Mousley presents a careful study of the 

 nesting of the Prairie Horned Lark at 

 Hatley, Quebec. 



Under the caption, 'The Type Locality 

 of Colaptes cafer,' Dr. T. S. Palmer 

 cleverly brings together published evidence 

 to show the blunders made by early 

 writers, by which this Flicker was de- 

 scribed as coming from the Cape of Good 

 Hope, when the specimen probably came 

 from Vancouver Island. — J. D. 



The Condor. — Of the seven general 

 articles in 'The Condor' for July, three 

 relate to birds of widely separated 

 localities in the South — in Cuba, Te.xas and 

 Arizona; two are local lists for Montana 

 and California; and two contain technical 

 descriptions of species. In 'Notes from the 

 U. S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, 

 Cuba,' Dr. T. N. Richards gives an 

 account of the birds which have come 

 under his observation, chiefly during the 

 winter months, and includes a description 

 of the nest and eggs of the Grassquit 

 {Tiaris canora). It is interesting to note 

 that of the twenty species mentioned only 



five, the Brown Pelican, Frigate-Bird, 

 Little Blue Heron, Zenaida Dove and 

 Ani occur in the United States. 'Meeting 

 Spring Half-Way' is the picturesque title 

 adopted by Mrs. Bailey for the first part 

 of a description of the birds found in .•Kpril 

 in Texas, chiefly in the vicinity of Texar- 

 kana, Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi 

 Bay and Tule Lake. A trip in the Santa 

 Catalina Mountains, Arizona, in May, 

 1904, is described by F. C. Willard, who 

 collected eggs of Costa's Hummingbird, 

 the Gray Vireo, Arizona Cardinal, Zone- 

 tailed Hawk and Palmer's Thrasher. 



Norman de W. Betts gives a briefly 

 annotated list of 48 species of 'Birds 

 seen in the Valley of the South Fork of the 

 Flathead River, Montana' in the summer 

 of 1915, and John G. Tyler contributes 

 'Migration and Field Notes from Fresno 

 Co., Calif.,' on 18 species observed chiefly 

 in 1914 and 1915. 



The Sahuaro Screech Owl {Otus asio 

 gilniani) described by Swarth a few years 

 ago, from southern Arizona, was recently 

 reduced to synonymy by Ridgway in his 

 review of the Owls in 'The Birds of North 

 and Middle America.' After a reexamina- 

 tion of the question and a study of some 

 30 specimens Swarth concludes that the 

 Sahuaro Owl is a recognizable race and that 

 there are two distinct types of Screech 

 Owls in southern Arizona, Olus a. cincra- 

 cetts in the higher mountains and Olus a. 

 gilmani in the hot lower Sonoran valleys. 



Under the title, 'A New Ruffed Grouse 

 from the Yukon Valley,' Grinnell describes 

 Bonasa iimhcllus yukoncnsis from a speci- 

 men collected at Forty-mile, on the Yukon 

 River near the Alaska boundary, on No- 

 vember 5, 1899, and now in the Museum 

 of Vertebrate Zoology at Berkeley, Calif. 



Among the brief notes should be men- 

 tioned several interesting records of the 

 breeding of the Western Robin in or near 

 Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, in 1915 

 and 1916. — T. S. P. 



