1877.] Recent Literature. 615 
ains. The shrews are represented by the greatest number of species in 
the United States ; none occur in South America, where also the moles 
are apparently absent. 
The new species described are (1.) Sorex pacificus (Baird, MSS. ined.), 
from Fort Umpqua, Oregon; (2) Sorex sphagnicola, from Fort Liard 
(or vicinity) H: B. T ; (3) Sorex (Notiosorex) Crawfordi (Baird, MSS. 
ined.), from near Fort Bliss, New Mexico ; (4) Sorex (Notiosorex) evotis, 
from Mazatlan, Mexico; (5) Blarina (Soriciseus) Mexicana (Baird, 
MSS. ined.), from Xalapa, Mexico. 
Recent ORNITHOLOGICAL PAPERS. — Among the many faunal lists 
of birds that have appeared so frequently during the last few years, 
none exceed in interest Mr. E. W. Nelson’s recently published catalogue 
of the Birds of Northeastern Illinois. The locality, owing to certain 
topographic 1 peculiarities, is of a somewhat exceptional character. Its 
position, midway between the wooded region of the East and the tree- 
less plains of the West, with the Great Lakes in close proximity, and 
‘warm river-bottoms extending up from the South, renders it, as Dr. 
Hoy long since termed the contiguous portions of Wisconsin, a kind of 
“four corners,” where the bird faunas of four regions to some degree 
interblend. In summer some twenty species, characteristic of more 
southern latitudes, find here their northern limit of distribution, extend- 
ing considerably further north here than on the Atlantic coast or in the 
intervening region. A dozen other species whose proper homes have 
been considered to be the region west of the Mississippi River or the 
great plains, still further west, have also been detected as casual visit- 
‘ants. Lake Michigan, with the chain of Great Lakes to the eastward, 
affords conditions favorable to the development of a decidedly maritime 
element in the fauna, through the occasional presence in or about its 
waters of most of the so-called sea-ducks and gulls, as the three species 
of scoter ( Ædemia), two species of eider (Somateria), the harlequin and 
the oldwife ducks, and the skua, glaucus, white-winged, black-backed, and 
kittiwake gulls; and, among shore-birds, such species as the sanderling, © 
the piping plover, and several sandpipers usually regarded as maritime. 
More unexpected, perhaps, than any of these is the sharp-tailed finch 
(Ammodromus caudacutus), known previously only as an inhabitant of 
the salt-marshes of the Atlantic coast. In the marshes of Northeastern 
Illinois, however, it takes on a slightly different phase of coloration, and 
has become otherwise so far modified as to be recognizable as a distinct 
Tace (var. Nelsoni), which has been honored with the name of its dis- 
Coverer, 
Mr. Nelson has recorded three hundred and sixteen species, with 
Several additional varieties, as found within the limited area of scarce 
More than two counties (Cook and Lake), a considerably larger num- 
1 Birds of Northeastern Illinois. By E. W. Netsox. Bulletin of the Essex Insti- 
tute, vol, viii., pp. 90-155, April, 1877. 
