NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 119 



these numbers that there is a good deal more about nomenclature 

 published than any practical ornithologist can be expected to stand 

 with equanimity, while previous volumes of 'The Emu ' have appealed 

 to us as veritable mines of observation, so that we are not astonished 

 at the criticism referred to. 



The Auk. Vol. xxxiii. No. 1, January, 1916. American Ornitho- 

 logists' Union, Cambridge, Mass. 75 cents. 

 Those interested in the duck tribe and in bird problems in 

 general will find the papers of Dr. C. M. Townsend and Mr, 

 John C. Phillips, appearing in this number of the great American 

 ornithological quarterly, of unusual interest. Dr. Townsend records 

 his observations on the courtship of the Merganser, Mallard, Black 

 Duck, Baldpate, Wood Duck, and Buffle-head. The Merganser 

 dealt with is the Goosander (Mergus americanus), a local race of the 

 Old World bird rather than a full species ; that of the Mallard is 

 of course well known to us. In describing it Dr. Townsend does 

 not mention the up-jerk of the stern which follows as a rule 

 the rear-up of the drake. In the courtship of the Black Duck 

 {Anas rubripes *), a species in which both sexes are very like 

 female Mallard, but much darker, the male often flies for short 

 distances over the water, as indeed does the Mallard, but less 

 frequently. The Baldpate, which is our rare visitor the American 

 Wigeon, displays very similarly to our bird, but apparently has a 

 softer note ; its ordinary note, certainly, as we have observed in 

 captives here, is softer and has more syllables than our Wigeon's. 

 The Wood Duck [Aex sponsa), the bird known to us in domestication 

 here as the Carolina Duck, is described as bobbing his head up and 

 down in an abbreviated bow, and erecting his crest. As we have 

 seen him display, the action is quite different, the crest being 

 actually flattened down, while the head and tail are raised and kept so 

 in a rather stiff manner. The Buffle-head, when courting, an action 

 believed by Dr. Townsend to be here described for the first time, 

 " spreads and cocks his tail, puffs out the feathers of his head and 

 cheeks, extends his bill straight out in front close to the water, and 

 every now and then throws it back with a bob in a sort of reversed 

 bow." Mr. Phillips brings to notice a very remarkable record 

 of migrating waterfowl, the capture of three species of American 

 ducks in the Marshall Islands, north-east of New Guinea. These 

 were the Pintail, Green-winged Teal (Anas carolinensis *), and 



* Anas obscura and Nettion carolinense of the British Museum 

 Catalogue. 



