Recent Literature. 
1 66 
In the comparison above made between the catalogues of 1859 and 1881, 
based on that given by the author of the later catalogue, there is no in- 
timation that the geographical limits of the two are not the same, which, 
however, is not the case, the later catalogue embracing the peninsula of 
Lower California and the islands Socorro and Guadalupe, off the 
western coast of Mexico, not included in the former. These islands fur- 
nish 11 species and 3 subspecies, and Cape Saint Lucas 8 (22 new names 
in all), of the 226 additions; and there are, besides, 5 of Giraud’s “ Six- 
teen Species of Texan Birds” included which were not given in the earlier 
catalogue, reducing the number of actual additions from within the same 
geographical limits to 199. As said above, this number of additions is 
certainly surprisingly large, and one doultless little anticipated by orni- 
thologists twenty years ago. 
It may be further observed in this connection that of the recent additions 
20 are from Greenland, 9 from Alaska, and 2 from Greenland and Alaska 
together. A few others are pelagic, and 38 are from near our southern 
border, chiefly from the valley of the Rio Grande and Arizona. 
In respect to the geographical limits of the area treated in the present 
catalogue, the author tells us that it includes Greenland and the whole of 
Noi'th America down to the United States and Mexican boundary, besides 
“ the peninsula of Lower California, and the outlying islands of Guada- 
lupe and Socorro, the latter in latitude 18 0 35', and about 240 miles off the 
coast of northwestern [ i.e ., southwestern] Mexico, the former in latitude 
29 0 , and 230 miles southwest from San Diego. Guadalupe and Socorro, 
like Lower California,” continues our author, “are included for the reason 
that their zoological relationships are much closer to North America, as 
usually (but arbitrarily) restricted, than to the tropical coast-region of 
western Mexico, their avian fauna in particular being decidedly of ‘Nearc- 
tic,’ affinity with the exception, so far as known, of only two species — a 
Polyborus peculiar to Guadalupe and a Conurus found both in Socorro 
and in western Mexico. Indeed, the greater part of Mexico itself (all, in 
fact, except the narrow coast-region, or tierra calienta , and the lowlands 
of the southern portion) belongs, ornithologically as well as geographi- 
cally, to North America, as might easily be demonstrated did space per- 
mit; but the enlargement of our field to its proper limits would be quite 
impracticable at the present time. For the surrender of this our rightful 
territory, however, we have compensation in the fact that the arbitrary line 
which we have drawn (2. 0., the United States and Mexican boundary from 
the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the Colorado) gives a comparative sta- 
bility to the list which a greater southward extension of the area, with 
indefinite limits, would render impossible” {ofi. cit ., pp. 7, 8). Audubon’s- 
“ Synopsis ” included “ the vast regions extending from the northern con- 
fines of Mexico to the Polar Seas”; Baird’s “Catalogue” of 1858, on 
which that of 1859 was based, was a list of the birds of “ North America, 
[occurring] north of Mexico,” but included a number of Mexican species 
which were, however, especially distinguished in the list as extralimital ; 
Coues’s “Check List” included North America “north of the present 
