Recent Literature. 
I 64 
decent 'Citerature. 
Ridg way’s Nomenclature of North American Birds.* — So many 
species of birds have been recently added to the North American 
fauna, and so many important changes have been made in the nomencla- 
ture of species previously catalogued as North American, since the publica- 
tion of Dr. Coues’s “ Check List of North American Birds” in 1874, and 
especially since the appearance of Professor Baird’s “ Catalogue of 
North American Birds ” in 1859, that a new check list, faithfully embody- 
ing these changes and additions, had become a necessity when Mr. Ridg- 
way set about the preparation of the present catalogue. f Mr. Ridgway’s 
well-known familiarity with North American birds, and his abundant 
resources for their investigation, render the authorship of the present 
catalogue eminently fitting, while its publication under the direction of 
the Smithsonian Institution lends to it a standing and an influence 
that would alone go far toward making it authoritative. Like Audubon’s 
“ Synopsis” of 1839, Baird’s “ Catalogue” of 1859, an ^ Coues’s “Check 
List” of 1874, its publication marks an epoch in North American 
ornithology, and will form, like the preceding, a datum-point in the history 
of the subject. It becomes, therefore, a work of high importance and one 
to the consideration of which we may well give considerable space. 
An interval of twenty years elapsed between the appearance of Audubon’s 
“ Synopsis ’’ and Baird’s “ Catalogue.” In 1839 our vast western territories 
were ornithologically almost unknown. Audubon had not then visited 
the Upper Missouri region, but Townsend had crossed the continent and 
explored hastily the plains of the Columbia and the North-west Coast, 
bringing therefrom many new species of birds. But the great central 
region and the South-west, still Mexican territory, remained untouched, 
During the twenty years following, this whole vast region was traversed 
in the interest of science. The various surveys for a railroad route to 
the Pacific, begun in 1853 and continued for four years, carried several 
* Nomenclature of North American Birds chiefly contained in the United States 
National Museum. By Robert Ridgway. Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., No. 21. Published 
under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington : Government 
Printing Office, 1881. 8vo. pp. 1-94. 
t The memoir now under notice appeared originally several months since (Proc. 
U. S. Nat. Mus., Vol. Ill, pp. 163-246, Aug. 24-Sept. 4, 1880) under the title, “A Cat- 
alogue of the Birds of North America.” “This catalogue,” says its author, “ is really 
the basis of the present one, which is essentially a revised edition, very materially 
modified, however, by numerons alterations and corrections, involving not only the 
change of a considerable number of names, but also the writing of a new introduction, 
etc. The edition the title of which has -just been quoted has not been published separate- 
ly, although a number of extras were struck off for private use” {op. cit., p. 5). 
