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The Ornithological Magazines 



The Auk. — 'In Memoriam: William 

 Palmer,' by Richmond, with photographic 

 portrait frontispiece, opens the July number 

 of the Auk. Palmer was for forty-seven 

 years connected with the United States 

 National Museum as field collector and taxi- 

 dermist. Meanwhile he contributed largely 

 to the art of taxidermy, gathered specimens 

 for the Museum in different parts of the 

 world, and gave to science the product of 

 keen observation with clear independent 

 deduction. To other and younger orni- 

 thologists he gave the inspiration of a boyish 

 enthusiasm for field investigations, never 

 lost. William Palmer's published papers 

 are varied and scattered, and it is very nice 

 that a list of them follows this memorial 

 sketch. 



Lincoln describes methods and traps 

 (illustrated) for taking Ducks for banding 

 purposes, and gives details of returns from 

 banding 206 Ducks at a single station north 

 of western Lake Ontario in the fall of 1920 

 by Mr. H. S. Osier. 



These birds were mostly Mallards and 

 Black Ducks, the majority whereof migrated 

 down the Mississippi Valley; a smaller 

 number crossed the Alleghanies to reach the 

 Atlantic coast at Chesapeake Bay. Two 

 Ring-necked Ducks, banded, seem to have 

 followed the latter course and were killed 

 respectively in Virginia in November and 

 South CaroUna in January. Several Blue- 

 winged Teal were banded, but the early 

 migration of this species seems to have 

 carried them beyond the United States before 

 the opening of the gunning season. One, 

 however, was taken in the West Indies, 

 September 24. 



L. R. Talbot, operating S. P. Baldwin's 

 trapping station at Thomasville, Ga., in the 

 spring of 1922, met with a Brown Thrasher 

 now at least eight years old. 



In 'Bird Notes from North Greenland,' 

 Langdon Gibson presents interesting field 



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observations from an Arctic expedition some 

 years past. Water- and shore-birds were 

 noted on these far northern summer grounds 

 from the South at various dates in June, as 

 follows: Glaucous GuU, June 2 to 10 

 Ringed Plover, June 5; Briinnich's Murre 

 Old Squaw, and Northern Eider, June 6 

 Red-throated Loon and Dovekie, June 8 

 Knot, June 11; Parasitic Jaeger, June 12 

 Sanderling, June 14; Arctic Tern, June 16 

 and Turnstone, June 21. 



Joseph Grinnell in 'The Role of the Acci- 

 dental,' points out that the occurrence of 

 stray birds outside their range is a natural 

 phenomenon incident to a possible occupa- 

 tion of new territory by a species. He would 

 restrict the term 'accidental' to cases where 

 a species has occurred but once. In the 

 opinion of the reviewer this term, if quite 

 so narrowly restricted, would lose some of its 

 usefulness. On the other hand, it is doubt- 

 less frequently employed too broadly. A 

 bird which has occurred sufficiently often 

 in any territory to be expected again — for 

 instance, the Arkansas Kingbird in the 

 East — should not be called an 'accidental.' 



McAtee gives a statistical study of the 

 food of the Shoveller Duck; A. A. Saunders, 

 a very thorough descriptive study of the 

 songs of the Field Sparrow. R. C. Harlow in 

 'The Breeding Habits of the Northern Raven 

 in Pennsylvania,' gives a considerable contri- 

 bution to the life history of that bird. The 

 date of the laying of its first egg is found to 

 vary from February 22 to April 5. N. 

 Kuroda and T. Mori, 'On Some New and 

 Rare Birds from Corea,' is a short syste- 

 matic paper in which two new subspecies are 

 described. C. C. Sanborn, 'Recent Notes 

 from an Old Collecting Ground in North- 

 eastern Illinois,' gives annotations on some 

 twenty-five species. 



As usual 'General Notes' contains a variety 

 of items of faunal interest. Pearson has had 

 the good fortune to observe four Whooping 

 Cranes in Texas in December, 192 1. C. A. 

 Urner gives fuU details of his observation of 



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