1897.] . Recent Literature. 513 
of especial interest is “ Homes for Wild Birds,” offering suggestions for 
enticing migrating birds to establish themselves in places where they 
are needed either as insect-catchers or where they are wanted to fulfil 
their mission of song and beauty. 
Annual Report for 1894, Geological Survey of Canada.’— 
This volume includes, besides the summary report of the Director of 
the Survey, a series of seven systematic, detailed reports on special 
work in particular regions of the Dominion. These several reports 
have been previously issued, as completed, and may be obtained sep- 
arately. 
The Director’s report includes extended notices of the preliminary 
results of the various scientific investigations and explorations in the 
field, notably those of Mr. A. P. Low in Labrador and Mr. J. B. Tyr- 
rel in a second expedition to the country west of Hudson Bay and 
north of the Churchill River. Attention also is called to the import- 
ance of the investigations of the petroleum fields of Athabasca and 
northern Alberta, as all indications favor the existence of a great oil- 
bearing region in the northwest. 
The volume comprises 1206 pages. It is accompanied by eleven 
maps and illustrated by fifteen plates and diagrams, besides a number 
of figures in the text. 
Thaxter’s Laboulbeniacez.’—In a stately quarto volume of 
two hundred and forty-two beautifully printed pages and twenty-six 
plates crowded with six hundred and seventy-two elegantly drawn fig- 
ures, Dr. Thaxter makes a notable addition to botanical science. Be- 
ginning his studies in 1890 when the known species in the world were 
but fifteen, of which but one was known to be North Americah, the 
author has brought to light so many new species that to-day there are 
no less than one hundred and fifty-eight known, and he estimates that 
when all the species throughout the world are discovered, the total 
number may be from five hundred to one thousand. Thus there is 
injected into our system of the fungi a group of no mean importance in 
point of numbers, which hitherto has been so little known as to be 
pretty generally ignored. Hereafter, even a general survey of the 
fungi must include some notice of this group. 
8 Annual Report for 1894 (new series), Vol. VII, Geological Survey of Can- 
ada. Ottawa, 1896 
? Contribution Towards a Monograph of the Laboulbeniacee. By Roland 
Thaxter. Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, XII. Pre- 
sented May 8, 1895, published December, 1896. 
