Book News and Reviews 



367 



important contribution to our knowledge 

 of the nesting habits of the Merganser 

 (Merganser americanus). On June 18, 

 1910, and on June 12, 1913, on the 

 Tobique River, N. B., Mr. Post saw most 

 of the individuals of broods of eleven and 

 seven, respectively, downy Mergansers 

 jump from their nest in the limb of a 

 live elm, about forty feet from the ground. 

 The tree stood some fifteen feet from the 

 bank of the river. Several of the young 

 were seen to fall on the ground, and Mr. 

 Post believes that none fell into the water. 

 On landing, they immediately went to 

 the water, where their mother was wait- 

 ing for them. 



Under the title 'Intensive Field Obser- 

 vation,' C. William Beebe gives an out- 

 line for the study of birds in nature, based 

 largely on one prepared for Bird-Lore by 

 Ernest Thompson Seton some ten years 

 ago (Vol. VI, 1904, p. 182). 



Beecher S. Bowdish, Secretary of the 

 New Jersey Audubon Society, writes of 

 the work of that society which, it appears, 

 now has a membership of more than 

 twenty thousand. In an editorial on bird 

 destruction, the Editor would grant the 

 scientist permission to collect specimens 

 and the sporstman permission to kill game 

 birds, provided such collecting or killing 

 did not result in decreasing the numbers 

 of the species concerned. In this country, 

 at any rate, the taking of specimens for 

 scientific purposes is now so controlled by 

 law that the result of scientific collecting 

 is wholly negligible. Indeed, in our 

 opinion, it has never been otherwise. It is 

 now very difficult for a student to secure 

 a permit to collect even a limited number 

 of specimens for scientific purposes. Some 

 states refuse entirely to honor applica- 

 tions for permits to collect specimens, but 

 will give to the same applicant a license 

 to shoot birds for sport. 



Other states limit the number of scien- 

 tific permits to six or eight, and in a single 

 year issue over one hundred thousand 

 permits to kill for pleasure! Evidently 

 there is room in the treatment of this 

 subject for a little of the reasonableness 

 the Editor of 'The Oriole' advocates. 



The August number of 'The Oriole,' 

 "forming the second and concluding issue 

 of Volume II, opens with a short article 

 on the nesting of the Blue-winged Warbler 

 at Little Falls, N. J., by Louis S. Kohler; 

 who also describes the experiences of an 

 ornithologist on 'a June Day at Green- 

 wood Lake'; Lee S. Crandall writes of 

 'Some Costa Rican Orioles;' T. Gilbert 

 Pearson tells of the successful efforts of 

 the National Association of Audubon 

 Societies in protecting plume-bearing 

 Herons; George D. Cross gives 'Some 

 Hints for Better Game Protection;' Helen 

 Bull, Sally Sage, and Cornelia Sage con- 

 tribute brief notes on 'The Orioles,' 'The 

 Swallows,' and 'The Cowbird' respectively, 

 while the Editor discusses terms which 

 will definitely describe the manner of 

 occurrence and relative abundance of a 

 given species in a certain area. 



Book News 



The University of Iowa issues a booklet 

 of ten plates illustrating its cyclorama of 

 Laysan Island bird-life, doubtless the 

 most elaborate museum exhibition of its 

 kind in the world. The cyclorama was 

 composed and executed by Prof. Homer 

 R. Dill, of the University of Iowa, and the 

 background, which is 138 feet long and 12 

 feet high, was painted from studies made 

 in Laysan by Charles A. Corwin, dis- 

 tinguished for his success in painting back- 

 grounds for the bird and mammal groups 

 of the Field Museum. 



'OiJR Feather Monitors,' a booklet 

 of poems by J. H. A. B. Williams, of Glen- 

 mont, Ohio, is published with the object 

 of 'stimulating an interest in bird-life,' an 

 end it seems well-designed to accomplish. 



The Royal Society for the Protection of 

 Birds issues in attractive leaflet form an 

 account of its Bird Reserve 'Brean Dawn,' 

 which describes a locality apparently well 

 designed to promote the ends in view. 

 This publication, which is sold by the So- 

 ciety of 23 Queen Anne's Gate, London, S. 

 W., for two cents, suggests the desirability 

 of issuing similar pamphlets in connection 

 with Bird Reserves in this country. 



