No. 483.) NOTES AND LITERATURE. 503 
catalogued by W. L. Distant, all of which ‘were previously known 
from British India.. A. E.. B PM records a species each’of Nema- 
tode and Tremaria worms. 
J.*8. K. 
Townsend's Birds of Essex County, Massachusetts.'— This 
book is-all that its name implies and it is much more. Not only is 
it one of the most important recent contributions to faunal literature, 
but the extended notes on the habits of many birds make it a valu- 
able treatise in ornithological bionomics. Of the three hundred and 
fifty-two large pages, the first seventy-three consist of nine chapters 
on topography and faunal areas; the birds of the ocean, the beaches, 
the dunes, the salt and the fresh marshes; and the ponds ; lighthouse 
records ; and the ornithological history of the County. It will be 
apparent that the stress is laid on the water birds in these introduc- 
tory chapters, and this is only natural in view of the fact that Essex 
is a maritime county, and that Ipswich, with its beach, marshes, and 
dunes, is one of the most interesting localities ornithologically on the 
coast, besides being the summer home of the author. So, too, the 
biographical matter contained in the Annotated List which makes 
up the bulk of the volume is chiefly in connection with the birds of 
the sea and the shore, including, however, such passerine species as 
the Horned Lark, the Snow Bunting, the Lapland Longspur, and 
the Ipswich Sparrow. These notes on the habits of birds are almost 
entirely original, the results of Dr. Townsend's patient and pene- 
trating observations covering many years of field work as collector 
and observer. The treatment of certain of the more interesting 
species is minute and well-nigh exhaustive,— though the author very 
properly confines himself to the habits as manıfested in Essex 
County and has nothing to say, for instance, of the breeding habits 
of birds that do not breed in the County. Thus the account of the 
Herring Gull occupies seven and a half pages, in which, among 
other things, is advanced the theory that the large flocks of gulls 
found in summer on the Ipswich shore are made up of daily visitors 
from the Maine breeding-grounds. Dr. Townsend also treats the 
Black Duck very fully and presents interesting data as to the status 
of Anas obscura rubripes, the recently separated subspecies. Con-. 
1 Townsend, Charles Wendell, M. D. "The Birds of Essex County, Massachu- 
setts, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, no. 3. 352 pp.. frontispiece, 
map. 4to, published by the Club, Cambridge, Mass.,.1905. $2.50. 
