52 



Recent Literature. y\AnxvAx\ 



Gentians and the bright scarlet Cardinal Flowers. These are favorite 

 haunts of the Canada Jay and, in the autumn, of immense flocks 6f 

 Robins that come to feed upon the handsome berries of the mountain 

 ash trees that alwa_ys skirt the open places, easing the stiff edge of the 

 bordering forest." 



The section devoted to botany is occupied chiefly by nominal lists of 

 the common forest trees, undershrubs, and smaller flowering plants of 

 the Adii-ondacks. For the shrubs and smaller plants the scientific names 

 alone are given, and these, printed as "solid matter," fill the greater part 

 of two pages with italics, — a most unfortunate arrangement from a typo- 

 graphical point of view. 



In the seventh section Mr. Merriam considers the faunal position of 

 the Adirondacks and concludes that the region pertains to the Canadian 

 Fauna. In support of this conclusion he cites the presence of such 

 '•eminently northern" mammals as the Lynx, Fisher Marten, Hudsonian 

 Flying Squirrel. Jumping Mouse, -Long-eared Wood Mouse, Porcupine, 

 and Northern Hare ; and among birds, the breeding of the "Hermit Thrush, 

 Swainson's Thrush, Red-bellied Nuthatch, Winter Wren ; Tennessee, 

 Yellow-rumped, Blackburnian, Black and Yellow, Mourning, and Canada 

 Flvcatching Warblers; White-wdnged and Red Crossbills, White-throated 

 Sparrow. Junco, Rusty Blackbird, Raven, Canada Jay, Olive-sided 

 Flycatcher, Black-backed and Banded-backed Three-toed Woodpeckers, 

 Spruce Grouse, Goshawk, and Golden-eyed Duck." From these lists, how- 

 ever, we should strike out the Jumping Mouse, Long-eared Wood Mouse, 

 Northern Hare, Hermit Thrush, and Olive-sided Flycatcher, all of which 

 occur too numerously in the Alleghanian Fauna to be regarded as typical 

 Canadian forms. 



There is a list, also, "of 'Subarctic' species of Lepidoptera collected in the 

 immediate vicinity of Beaver Lake," and a provisional list of plants 

 which the author regards as "fairly characteristic of a Canadian Flora." 



Chapter II occupies eighty pages and carries the subject through Car- 

 nivora in Mammalia. As a contribution to our knowledge of the habits, 

 food, times and manner of breeding, etc., of many of the northern mam- 

 mals this paper is an important one, for the life-history of each species 

 is given in the fullest manner, and usually from data supplied by the 

 author's experience or that of equally careful observers among his 

 acquaintances and friends. 



Orio-inal matter of this kind has an interest and value immeasurably 

 above that of the most able compilation, and it is doubly attract- 

 ive when, as in the present case, it is presented in simple, concise, 

 and hence forcible English. Not that our author's style is above criticism ; 

 on the contrary his sentences are sometimes looselj' constructed, and he too 

 frequently makes use of expressions which, to say the least, are undigni- 

 fied and in bad taste. He shows a tendency, also, to over-positiveness, 

 especiall}^ in the discussion of questions about which there may still be 

 room for a fair difterence of opinion. These faults, however, are neither 

 serious nor irremediable, and they are not likely to weigh heavily against 



