READING A CHECK-LIST 



MANY literary men have been given to 

 reading in dictionaries. The articles are 

 brief, but full of substance, and by no means so 

 disconnected as they look. One continually sug- 

 gests another, and as a man whose business is 

 with words follows the trail of these suggestions, 

 turning the big book over, a half -hour will pass 

 almost before he knows it. And in that time 

 he may have gathered more information worth 

 keeping than twice the same time devoted to 

 the casualties of a newspaper would have been 

 likely to furnish. 



So a student of birds may spend many a pro- 

 fitable season, longer or shorter, in rummaging 

 over the A. O. U. Check-List. The initial stands 

 for the American Ornithologists' Union, and the 

 latest edition of the book was published in 1910. 

 We had waited for it impatiently, so many things 

 had happened during the fifteen years since the 

 second edition was issued, and on having it in 

 hand we hastened to look it through from cover 

 to cover. 



Errors and omissions were noted with a meas- 

 ure of innocently malicious satisfaction ; for as a 

 160 



