REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 483 
Massachusetts with my name for the authority, and Dendroica 
ea and Polioptila cærulea are continually quoted for New 
England, without the slightest reason for so doing ; and now that 
Prof. Snow has given us a reliable basis for an authentic list of 
the Birds of Kansas, I for onè am not inclined to criticise that 
list because of species that escaped his knowledge, or because of 
a few misprinted asterisks, to mark as breeding in Kansas, birds 
that probably go farther north. We would only advise Prof. 
now when next he revises his list, to distinguish between the 
birds found in Kansas during the breeding season and those the 
nests of which have been positively found. This is often an im- 
portant distinction, more so than would at first appear. Barren 
and unmated birds are occasionally found where they do not breed. 
Sr M: B. 
In regard to the above, I wish to add a word or two. I agree 
with “T. M. B.” that Prof. Snow has placed ornithologists under 
obligations by his “List of the Birds of Kansas,” and especially 
since the additions he makes below, and the correction of typo- 
graphical errors, etc., in the new edition I understand he is about 
to publish, will make it a correct exposition of the avian fauna of 
ansas, as known at the present time. Professor Snow certainly 
avoided the “ besetting temptation to swell his catalogue by mere 
guesswork” for through correspondence with him I have been 
gratified to learn that not a species was included except on good 
evidence, and that many of the apparent mistakes to which I 
called attention in the June number of the Naturaxist, in respect 
to Species marked as’ breeding, were due to typographical errors. 
Having had considerable experience in the use of local lists, I may 
Perhaps be pardoned for still persisting that if he had restricted 
his list to Eastern Kansas, or even to the birds actually observed 
in the vicinity of Lawrence, it would have been a far more usefu 
Contribution to geographical zoology. The fault of many lists, 
“specially of those that are essentially merely nominal, is that 
they cover too much ground. Almost any of our larger states 
embrace portions of country very different in their climatic and 
nal aspects, and it is hence quite insufficient to give merely the 
oe of the species, without indicating whether they are acci- 
a occur only over limited areas, or uniformly over the whole 
“tea in question, My notice of Prof. Snow’s paper being a con- 
ous review of its character as judged by its “ internal evi- 
