80 
Recent Literature. 
Mr. Rowley here gives not only the literary history of the species, hut 
discusses its relationship to the Eiders. Although following Mr. A. New- 
ton in placing it in the genus Somciterici , he does it with some degree of 
reservation. His paper is enriched with five plates, in which are figured 
the sterna of all the Eiders ( Somateria stelleri, S. spectcibilis, and S. mollis- 
sima), with that of the present species, and the hill and feet of this species 
and of the common Eider. A beautifully colored plate is also devoted to 
the illustration of the adult male, female, and young male. He has, 
however, to lament his ignorance of the nest and eggs, of the nestling 
plumage of both sexes, as well as of some of the subsequent immature 
stages, and calls the attention of American ornithologists to the impor- 
tance of securing a scientific examination of the body of any specimen 
which the future may afford, notes of the color of the soft parts, and the 
preservation of the skeleton. 
The paper also contains extracts from letters from Professors S. F. 
Baird and the late James Orton, and Messrs. D. G. Elliot and George N. 
Lawrence, concerning the recent occurrence of this bird along the Atlantic 
coast of North America, and closes with a list of all the specimens known 
to the author to be extant. These number only thirty-three, of which 
about twenty are preserved in different collections in the United States, 
and the remainder in European museums. About one half are adult 
males, and most of the remainder adult females. The localities, so far as 
known, are Long Island, New York, thirteen specimens ; Calais, Me., 
two ; Halifax Harbor, one ; “ Labrador/’ one, and one is recorded from 
Delhi, Michigan ; eighteen in all, leaving fifteen from unknown localities. 
— J. A. A. 
Streets’s Notes on the Birds of Lower California and the 
Hawaiian and Fanning Islands. — Dr. Thornes H. Streets’s report of 
his Natural History explorations made in connection with the United 
States North Pacific Surveying Expedition of 1873-75 * includes notes 
on about fifty species of birds, of which rather more than one half were 
collected on the coast of Lower California and adjoining portions of the 
Mexican coast. The author acknowledges his indebtedness to Dr. Elliott 
Coues, U. S. A., for the identification of the birds, and adds that he has 
“ kindly furnished the notes accompanying that portion of the ornithological 
collection from the Californian Peninsula.” The collection contains two 
specimens of Mr. Lawrence’s rare Passerculus guttatus (known previously, 
from a single specimen from San Jose del Cabo), which, though formerly 
regarded as a variety of the P. rostratus, is here provisionally accepted as 
* Contributions to the Natural History of the Hawaiian and Fanning Islands 
and Lower California, made in connection with the United States North Pacific 
Surveying Expedition, 1873-75. By Thos. H. Streets, M. D., passed Assistant 
Surgeon, U. S. Navy. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, No. 7, 
p. 172 (Birds, pp. 9-33), Washington, 1877. 
