202 



Bird -Lore 



of what Mrs. Wright has well called this 

 literature of the "Long Bow" ('The 

 Critic,' April, 1903) . 



Unfortunately, members of this school take 

 themselves seriously and evidently believe 

 that their crude observations and absurd 

 deductions are as worthy of consideration as 

 those of the trained naturalist and animal 

 psychologist. Experience shows that we 

 cannot look to the publishers for protection 

 from the growing flood of books of this kind, 

 and we can only hope that, in time, the 

 interested public will have acquired enough 

 first-hand information from personal obser- 

 vation to detect and reject these wwnatural 

 histories of animal life. 



As a more tangible evidence of careless- 

 ness on the part of the publishers of the 

 present volume, we would call their atten- 

 tion to the fact that the " Pigeon Hawk " 

 facing page 68 is a Sharp-shinned Hawk ; 

 that the "Belted Kingfisher" on page 109 

 is not that species, but apparently the Euro- 

 pean bird ; that a cut of Fulica is made to 

 illustrate text relating to Oidemia ; that 

 the " Chickadee" on page 173 is the Moun- 

 tain Chickadee, a species of the western 

 United States, and that the Blue-winged 

 Warbler on page 211 should have no place 

 in the book at all.— F. M. C. 



Birds of Laysan and the Leeward Is- 

 lands, Hawaiian Group. By Walter 

 K. Fisher. Pages 1-39, plates i-x of 

 the U. S. Fish Commission Bulletin for 

 1903. 



It is a long time since Bird-Lore has 

 received a more interesting publication 

 than this record of Mr. Fisher's studies 

 on Laysan and the neighboring islands, 

 which he visited on the U. S. Fish Com- 

 mission steamer Albatross between May 

 and August, 1902. 



Thoroughly prepared to make the most 

 of the unusual opportunities afforded a 

 naturalist in these densely inhabited bird 

 islands, Mr. Fisher evidently used his eyes, 

 pen, and camera to the best advantage, and 

 gives us a series of exceptionally valuable 

 observations and photographs. Although 

 his time on Laysan was limited, birds were 

 found to be so abundant and so tame that 

 no difficulty was experienced in securing a 



set of pictures admirably illustrating gen- 

 eral conditions of the island bird-life and 

 characteristic habits of its birds. 



Incidentally it is stated that the widely 

 published photograph showing car-loads of 

 eggs of the Laysan Albatross was made to 

 order by a photographer who gathered the 

 eggs for the purpose of taking "a spectac- 

 ular picture"; an explanation which allays 

 our fears for the present safety of Laysan 

 birds, and explodes more or less indefinite 

 stories concerning the "dried albumen," 

 etc., for which it was said these eggs were 

 shipped in vast quantities to Honolulu ! 

 So easy is it, in the lack of exact informa- 

 tion, for false ideas to take root and flourish. 



Space forbids quotation from this valu- 

 able contribution to the study of island bird- 

 life, but we can commend it to our readers 

 as an unusually interesting recountal of a 

 naturalist's experience in one of the most re- 

 markable of known bird islands. — F. M. C. 



The Ornithological Magazines 



The Auk. — The October 'Auk' opens 

 with one of William Brewster's pleasant 

 sketches, this time recording the discovery 

 of a nest of the Philadelphia Vireo. Hith- 

 erto only one nest and no authentic eggs 

 have been preserved, and, as Mr. Brewster 

 was the first, years ago, to make known the 

 life-history of this rare little bird, it is pe- 

 culiarly appropriate that the discovery of a 

 nest should finally fall to his lot. A half- 

 tone of the nest and eggs is shown. 'A Con- 

 tribution to the Life- History of the Herring 

 Gull * * *' by William Dutcher and W. B. 

 Baily, who visited a large colony on the 

 Maine coast, proves that even a common 

 species still affords opportunities for discov- 

 eries of habits and traits in its home-life. 

 The accompanying half-tones are well 

 chosen. 



Robert E. Snodgrass is following a com- 

 paratively unbeaten path in ' Notes on the 

 Anatomy of Geospiza, Cocornis and Cer- 

 thidia,' birds of the Galapagos Islands, his 

 paper being illustrated by original drawings. 

 A harvest awaits the reaper in the field of 

 avian anatomy. The birds of another mid- 

 ocean island, Laysan, were found at home 

 and ridiculously tame by W. K. Fisher, 



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