2 $6 
Recent Literature. 
%mxA literature. 
Stearns and Coues’s “New England Bird Life.”* — After many 
years of waiting we at length have a work on New England birds of 
which no ornithologist need feel ashamed. Indeed, this goes without 
saying when it is known that “ New England Bird Life ” is edited by Dr. 
Coues. It is a timely little volume and forms so important an addition 
to the literature of the subject of which it treats that we propose to con- 
sider it at some length. 
Immediately following the somewhat significant “ Editor’s Preface ” is 
an “Introduction,” which includes exceedingly useful chapters on the 
classification and structure of birds; the “Preparation of Specimens for 
Study”; the “Subject of Faunal Areas”; and the “Literature of New 
England Ornithology.” This preliminary portion occupies fifty pages, 
not one of which can be considered superfluous. The main body of the 
work comprises two hundred and seventy pages and treats the successive 
families in order, from the Thrushes through the Grows and Jays, thus em- 
bracing the whole order of Oscines. It is a pity that so many of our 
works are similarly incomplete, but in the present case we are assured 
that Part I is “ to be followed as soon as practicable, by a second volume, 
completing the treatise ” ; and perhaps it is not too much to hope that noth- 
ing will occur to prevent the fulfilment of this promise. 
The intended scop6 of the book is thus trenchantly defined in the 
Preface: “It is the object of the present volume to go carefully over 
the whole ground, and to present, in concise and convenient form, an 
epitome of the Bird-life of New England. The claims of each species 
to be considered a member of the New England Fauna are critically 
examined, and not one is admitted upon insufficient evidence of its 
occurrence within this area; the design being to give a thoroughly reliable 
list of the Birds, with an account of the leading facts in the life-history 
of each species. The plan of the work includes brief descriptions of the 
birds themselves, enabling one to identify any specimen he may have in 
hand; the local distribution, migration, and relative abundance . of every 
species ; together with as much general information respecting their 
habits as can conveniently be brought within the compass of a hand-book 
of New England Ornithology.” 
This plan is fully and consistently followed to the end, never slighted, 
seldom overstepped. The specific characters are given in the very simp- 
lest language but usually with sufficient definiteness to meet all the 
* New England Bird Life, being a Manual of New England Ornithology, revised and 
edited from the manuscript of Winfrid A. Stearns, Member of the Nuttall Ornithological 
Club, etc., by Dr. Elliott Coues, U. S. A., Member of the Academy, etc. Part I — 
Oscines. Boston, Lee and Shepard, Publishers. New York, Charles T. Dillingham, 
1881, 8vo. pp. 324, numerous woodcuts. 
