Recent Literature. 
137 
Channel, at which locality the first two weeks of June were spent ; Santa 
Barbara, where the party remained until July 13 ; the region about Mt. 
Whitney, visited in September ; and, lastly, Kernvi lie and Walker’s Basin, 
where the season was ended in October. When it is taken into consider- 
ation that much, if not nearly all, of the ground traversed had been pre- 
viously more or less carefully worked up by ornithological explorers, it is 
not to be wondered at that comparatively few discoveries are chronicled 
in the present paper. Among the more important results are the exten- 
sion, either southward or westward, of the previously recorded range of 
many species of birds. Several rather tangled problems of seasonal dis- 
tribution are likewise satisfactorily solved ; as in the case of the two 
Thrushes, Turdus Swainsoni ustulatus and T. pallasi nanus , the former 
being ascertained to be the species which breeds in California, while the 
latter occurs only as a migrant from regions farther north. Spizella brew- 
eri is, we notice, accorded specific rank, and on apparently substantial 
grounds ; but in the case of the Fox Sparrows (genus Passerella ) we believe 
the author’s more recent investigations have failed to confirm the arrange- 
ment settled upon in the present paper. The biographical annotations are 
often full, and always exceedingly interesting ; especially so is the account 
of the breeding “ rookery,” of the Red-and-white Shouldered Blackbirds 
(Agelceus tricolor) in a nettle-bed, and the description of the habits of the 
little-known Wandering Tatler ( Heteroscelus incanus). 
Mr. Henshaw was misinformed respecting the nest of Empidonax trailli 
pusillus “ built in the hollow of a tree.” The nest referred to is in the 
writer’s possession, together with the parent birds, which are Empido- 
nax Jlaviventris difficilis. The by far too frequent typographical errors 
which occur throughout the report somewhat mar its otherwise fair ap- 
pearance, but we understand that this was unavoidable, as the author was 
absent and inaccessible at the time of the final revise. As a whole the 
paper is a most creditable one, and forms a very acceptable contribution to 
our store of knowledge upon the Ornithology of the State of California. 
II. Report for 1877.* — This report, which we have just received, 
opens with a description of the country investigated by Mr. Henshaw 
during the season of 1876, and which lies in the neighborhood of Carson 
City, Nevada. Immediately following is a systematic and very able con- 
sideration of the faunal provinces of the United States, more especially the 
Middle and Pacific ones. The eastern slope of the Sierras, though prop- 
erly belonging to the Pacific Province, is shown to be, to a certain extent, 
intermediate in its character between it and the Middle Province. The 
* Annual Report upon the Geographical Surveys West of the One-Hundredth 
Meridian, etc. By George M. Wheeler, First Lieutenant of Engineers, U. S. A. 
Being Appendix NN of the Annual Report of Engineers for 1877. Washington 
Government Printing-Office, 1877. Report on the Ornithology of Portions of 
Nevada and California. By Mr. H. W. Henshaw. pp. 1303-1322. 
VOL. III. 10 
