2I 4 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXXVII. 



The visitor to Franconia or to Florida who is interested in birds 

 takes Mr. Torrey's sketches as part of his outfit. 



To serve as ornithological herald to Colorado was not perhaps 

 Mr. Keyser's ambition ; an enthusiast such as he needs no other 

 incentive to write than the pleasure he feels in communicating his 

 experiences. Mr. Keyser certainly has adequate enthusiasm. 

 Such expressions as "•rapture." "transports," occur so frequently 

 that we question whether a more subtle expression of his delight 

 would not be more likely to impress the reader. Our second desid- 

 eratum, scientific training enough to wrest from a new region some 

 fresh interesting matter is hardly shown in this book. The titles of 

 some of the chapters, " Bald Peaks and Green Vales," " A Rocky 

 Mountain Lake," " Ho ! for Gray's Peak! " etc., show that it is rather 

 a series of rambling sketches of the Colorado bird-landscape, so to 

 speak, than a collection of serious studies. 



When we come to the literary quality of the book the less said the 

 better. It seems as if a book like this could justify its existence only 

 by attaining a fairly high standard of literary excellence. This should 

 not be hard in these days when Burroughs, Torrey, Muir and Roberts, 

 to name but a few of the leaders, have furnished abundant models. 

 Imagine any of these authors describing an indigo bird as an "ani- 

 mated chunk of blue," (page 154), saying that a woodpecker "has 

 the habit of soaring out into the air and nabbing insects on the 

 wing" (page 162), or writing of pipits that "their semi-musical 

 calls drop and dribble from the turquoise depths of the sky " (page 

 239)- 



Of the plates by Mr. Fuertes, those in black and white exhibit that 

 artist's well-known charm and vigor of drawing, but those in color 

 are with one exception very disappointing. Why are the birds in one 

 of Mr. Horsfall's charming little scenes (p. 139) called Brewer's 

 Blackbirds, when three at least are Yellow-headed Blackbirds ? 



Protozoa. — It is a full score of years since Kent's " Manual of the 



K. H. 



(1 Hutschli's monumental monograph of the 

 No comprehensive resume' of progress in 

 -ed in the years that have since elapsed. 



