54 
Recent Literature 
artistic value in tlieir present position. Between this collection of plates 
and the text is inserted Ord’s biography of Wilson. 
No one can help rejoicing at any effort to disseminate more widely an 
acquaintance with Alexander Wilson and his charming and painstaking 
work. Happy the young ornithologist whose first draughts are from this 
fountain. But simply to reprint Wilson, even with Bonaparte added, at 
$ 7.50, pointing out none of the errors, nor supplementing the short- 
comings, is, to say the least, utterly unnecessary to the advancement of 
the science. What would be welcome is an edition of Wilson at moderate 
price, prepared under the direction of a competent ornithologist, which 
should be a commentary on the splendid work of the Father of American 
Ornithology, and should indicate in a brief and graphic way the progress 
in the science since his death. Such a work would be of great value to 
the ordinary man of culture as well as to the specialist; and to fail to do 
this, as in the present case, simply represents a grand opportunity thrown 
away. This is the more to be regretted since the publishers seem to have 
had an inkling of the truth, and made a faint effort toward it by including 
Baird’s Catalogue, which was a fair nominal list at the time of the former 
reprint, but is now obsolete in all particulars, and is thus worse than use- 
less as an addition to Wilson’s volume. — E. I. 
Coues’s Birds of the Colorado Valley. — Judging by the vol- 
ume now at hand,* the “ Birds of the Colorado Valley ” will leave far 
in the shade the same author’s very useful and justly popular hand-book 
of the “ Birds of the Northwest,” to which this work is designed as a com- 
plementary treatise. It has a much wider scope, treating exhaustively the 
technicalities of the general subject of North American Ornithology, es-, 
pecially its bibliographical phases. The biographical portion of the work 
is limited to the species inhabiting the Colorado Basin. This constitutes 
the chief part of the text, and is evidently written to meet the wants and 
tastes of the general public. It is accordingly couched in well-turned 
periods, and displays the graceful diction, the facility of expression, and 
the telling ways of putting things that so strongly mark Dr. Coues’s at- 
tempts at a popular presentation of natural history subjects, and which 
give to his style an attractiveness few writers are able to command. The 
plan of the work, we are glad to see, so far departs from that followed in 
the “Birds of the Northwest” as to include descriptions of the species. 
These have evidently been drawn up with special regard to conciseness 
and precision, and of course render the work a convenient hand-book of 
the birds of the region specially treated. 
* Birds of the Colorado Valley. A [Repository of Scientific and Popular In- 
formation concerning North American Ornithology. By Elliott Coues. Part 
First. Passeres to Laniidae. Bibliographical Appendix. Seventy illustrations 
(woodcuts). 8vo. pp. xvi, 807. Washington, Government Printing Office, 
1878. “Miscellaneous Publications, No. 11” of the United States Geological 
Survey of the Territories, F. V. Hayden, U. S. Geologist-in-Charge. 
