750 Recent Literature. [December, 
A week later their arboreal home had so far progressed that 
they could enter and be screened from the view of their vexatious 
little enemies. Here they worked and delved —if I may be 
allowed the term — for another week to secure the proper depth. 
The ground for several yards around the tree was strewn with 
the tiny, white chips brought up at intervals and cast to the 
winds with that peculiar flirt of the head and bill which is char- 
acteristic of this avian family. About the middle of July, I 
found both parents busily occupied in searching the trunks and 
limbs of trees for larvee and worms to feed their young. Dur- 
ing and after the period of incubation, the familiar notes of this 
bird were rarely heard except very early in the morning. The 
first week in August both families of woodpeckers disappeared 
and have not been seen since. 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
Copr’s VERTEBRATE PaLeontoLocy or New Mexico.!— The 
present volume of nearly four hundred pages of text and upward of sixty 
plates comprises Professor Cope’s final report upon the vertebrate pal- 
ontology of New Mexico to the Wheeler survey. The species here 
described and figured have in greater part been previously characterized 
in various preliminary papers published by Professor Cope during the 
last three years; they are here treated more in detail, with the addition 
of nearly one thousand excellent figures. The volume hence takes rank 
as one of the most important contributions to North American verte- 
brate palzontology that has yet appeared. Among the results attained | 
are, as announced by the author, “the elucidation of the structure of the 
western slope of the Rocky Mountains and the plateau to the westward : 
of them, in Northwestern New Mexico;” “the determination of the 
fresh-water character of the ‘Triassic’ beds in that region ;” “the dis- 
covery of extensive deposits of the Lower Eocene, equivalent to the : 
Suessonian of Western Europe;” “the determination of the faune of 
four periods, in basins: which had not previously been explored, namely, 
in the Trias, the Eocene, the Loup Fork Epoch, and the Postpliocene of 
the Sandia Mountains.” The number of species of extinct vertebrata — 
“ obtained during the season of 1874,” and described in the present report, 
are “? Triassic, 4; Cretaceous, 13; Eocene, 87; Upper Miocene (Loup 
Fork), 30; Postpliocene, 2 ;” making a total of 136 species. The 
1 Report upon United States Ge eographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth 
Meridian. In charge of First Lieut. Geo. M. Wheeler, Corps of Engineers U. Bo 
Army. Vol. IV. Palæontology, Part II. Report upon the Extinct Vertebrata obtained 
in New Mexico by Parties of the Expedition £ a, By Prof. E. D. CoPE. Ato, is 
pp- xii., 370; pls, xxii—Ixxxiii. Washington. 1877. a 
