Recent Literature. 
49 
the writer during the month ending April 17th, 1881, at ‘ Cinclaire ' plan- 
tation, situated in the parish of West Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on the 
right bank of the Mississippi, one hundred and twenty-seven miles by 
river above New Orleans.” 
The locality is described as flat and uninteresting .... The cultivated 
grounds are mainly comprised in a strip ranging from one to three miles in 
width, along the rivers and principal bayous, the remainder of the state 
being chiefly occupied by extensive forests and swamp lands.” 
The author considers the list “of quite as much interest for what it 
does not include, as for what it does” and comments on the apparent 
absence of the Catbird, Long-billed Marsh Wren, Black-and-white Creeper, 
Yellow-rumped, White-browed, Black-throated Green, Yellow Red-poll, 
and Kentucky Warblers, Large-billed Water Thrush, Redstart, Song 
Sparrow, and Common Pewee ; to which he might with equal propriety 
have added the Prothonotary and Blue-winged Yellow Warblers and the 
Acadian Flycatcher. But we cannot believe with him that the non- 
occurrence, on the present occasion, of most of these species has any special 
significance, either as affecting their general distribution in, or usual 
migration through, the region of which the paper treats. The country 
about “ Cinclaire ” may have been unsuited to the habits of some of them, 
while the early date of Dr. Langdon’s departure, taken in connection with 
the exceptional lateness of the season, will sufficiently explain his failui'e 
to detect a number of the migratory ones which have been found near 
the mouth of the Mississippi by Mr. Henshaw, and which are well known 
to extend over the Mississippi valley at large only a few hundred miles 
further to the northward. 
Dr. Langdon’s thoroughness and energy as a field collector are, how- 
ever, so well known through the medium of his valuable papers on Ohio 
birds, that we may rest assured that his work at “ Cinclaire ” was w6ll 
done, and the paper will be welcomed as an acceptable contribution to 
our knowledge of a region which has been nearly a terra incognita to 
ornithologists since the days of Audubon. — W. B. 
Krider’s Field Notes.* — In an unpretending little pamphlet of some 
eighty odd pages Mr. Krider has “ endeavored to describe and give the 
history of only those species of birds of the United States” which he has 
“collected and mounted,” and whose nests have come under his personal 
observation. Had this plan been carried out with only ordinary fore- 
thought and intelligence it could scarcely have failed to result in a valuable 
contribution to our knowledge of North American birds, for Mr. Krider’s 
long experience as a field collector must have afforded unusual opportuni- 
ties for original investigation and. observation. But a casual glance through 
* Forty Years’ Notes of a Field Ornithologist, by John Krider, Member of the Phil- 
adelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and author of Krider’s Sporting Anecdotes, 
Philadelphia. Giving a description of all birds killed and prepared by him. Philadel- 
adelphia, 1879, 8vo. pp. i-xi, 1-84. 
