
758 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vor. XXXV I. 
them common and familiar, e.g., the oriole, robin, crow, brown 
thrasher, a few less well known, such as the long-billed marsh wren 
and the yellow-headed blackbird. By commendable energy and 
patience the author has obtained notes describing the selection of 
the nesting site, the search for materials for building, the care of the 
young, and their efforts, successful or tragic, to make a start in life. 
In her “ Foreword " the author claims that her book is “as accurate 
as careful observation in the field can make it"; nor does anything 
in the book seem inconsistent with this claim. It is not, however, 
safe to accept all her conclusions from the facts recorded. She says 
further : * So far as reading human characteristics into animal life is 
concerned, can any one tell where the brute ends and the human 
begins? Many of the emotions of man's heart find their counter- 
part in the life of birds. "That we do not perceive this proves only 
how dull is our sight." The most hazardous attempt to read bird 
minds is the account, on pp. 119 and 120, of a supposed successful 
attempt of chickadees to poison a young one which had been made 
a captive. The story is told in the best faith, but it is an excel- 
lent example of what Prof. Lloyd Morgan has felicitously termed 
*the inability to distinguish the observed fact from the observer's 
inference." It is curious that the author seems wholly ignorant of 
Professor Herrick's book, which has laid the foundations of that 
part of the study of birds which she has chosen for her field. An 
acquaintance with Professor Herrick's work would have saved her 
from assuming that a parent bird “seemed to know instinctively 
which one [of the nestlings] had been fed." The study of the marsh 
birds is the most interesting part of the book, but several of the other 
chapters contain bits of valuable information, e.g., the account of the 
destruction by red-headed woodpeckers of the nests and young of 
cliff swallows. In an attempt to write brightly and entertainingly, 
the author too frequently sacrifices dignity, nor can her humor be 
said to be of a high order. The illustrations are, with a few excep- 
tions, poor, though it should be said that this fact is partly due to the 
evident reluctance of both the author and the photographer to 
interfere with the home life of the birds under observation. 
_A New Genus of Nemerteans.' — An important paper by Miss 
Thompson describes the anatomy, histology, and relationships of 
a new heteronemertean, of especial interest because it apparently 
1 Thompson, Caroline B. Zygeupolia litoralis, a New Heteronemertean, Proc. 
-~ Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia (December, 1901), pp. 657-739, Pls. XL-XLIV, 1902. 

