1880.] Sketch of North American Ornithology in 1879. 21 
increasing attention paid to ornithology by several of the semi- 
scientific papers, notably Charles Hallock’s Forest and Stream, of 
New York, and Dr. Rowe’s The Field, of Chicago. Though of 
course dealing chiefly in game birds, the natural history depart- 
ment of these papers gives us a good deal of ornithological 
matter ; the articles are grown more shapely, with a smaker pro- 
portion of untitled, anonymous or otherwise “ scrappy” pieces ; 
on the whole, these contributions rank with those of the London 
Field, and many of them are precisely of the character'of the 
shorter notes in the Nuttall Bulletin, or in Harting’s Zodlogist. 
In the case of Forest and Stream, we believe the commendable 
state of affairs to be largely due to the zeal and competence of 
Mr. George B. Grinnell, whose example in this purana is to be 
emulated. 
Science News, a fortnightly record of progress in science, estab- 
lished and edited in New York by W. C. Wykoff and Ernest In- 
gersoll, contains a fair proportion of ornithological matter. Among 
articles of 1879 may be noted Ingersoll’s instructions for forming 
collections of nests and eggs, and a part of G. B. Sennett’s expe- 
riences on the Rio Grande. We regret to learn that the publica- 
tion died with the year. 
The promptly-appearing and readily-available avenues of com- 
munication thus far mentioned have naturally absorbed most of 
the current items of ornithological information or entertainment 
for the year, less than formerly falling to the share of the AMERI- 
CAN NATURALIST, and the slower or more irregular publications of- 
scientific societies containing but few papers, all of a very techni- 
cal character. 
Leading these last comes the Proceedings of the U. S: Na- 
tional Museum, published by the Department of the Interior: 
under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution. The com- 
pleted first volume dates 1879, about half of it appearing in sheets 
in 1878. Here are found the complete results of Mr. F. A. 
Ober’s Explorations in the Lesser Antilles, elaborated in a series 
of important papers by Mr. G. N. Lawrence. One paper on these- 
collections was in Forest and Stream, and descriptions of several 
of Ober’s new species are given in the Annals of the New York 
Academy of Science, but the whole matter is finally set forth in 
the publication in mention. The Proceedings also contain sev- 
eral important papers by R. Ridgway, on neotropical birds, 
describing new species, monographing the genus Tyrannus, &e, 
