Jan., 1911 
I’UKLIC.VTIOXS RlvYIRWKl) 
.37 
.'^uch a work as the one proposed. Photographic 
processes and methods of reproduction have 
now reached a stage of perfection which makes 
the full and-artistic representation of our bird- 
life not only desirable but imperative. There 
is, so far as we have been informed, no promise 
of any other such work in the reasonably near 
future. Vet the popular interest in birds is 
really ver\- great. It is undeveloped, latent, 
often unintelligent indeed, but it is reall}’ 
more powerful and more nearly universal than 
manj’ of us who follow ornitholog}’ as a hobb)’ 
or as a .science are aware. A work addressed to 
this larger public will be of the greatest .value, 
not onl}- in the direct ser\-ice of that public, but 
in guaranteeing a more intelligent considera- 
tion of the legislative and protective measures 
and in arousing a more ready support for 
museums and other scientific institutions. Mr. 
Dawson is the man to do this work in Califor- 
nia and we rejoice at his coming. 
We own we are a little dazed bj- the brillian- 
C 3 ' of the program outlined by the author: edi; 
tions de luxe, and illustrations on a scale of 
tuagnificeiice rarely if ever before attempted in 
the history of American bird-book making: but 
Mr. Dawson made good in Washington, both 
as a writer and as a book-builder, and there is 
no reason that we can see whj- he should not 
achieve success here in California. 
Mr. Daw.son’s plans have been enthusiastical- 
ly ratified in open meeting b)’ both divisions 
of the Cooper Club; and the Club is pledged to 
extend to the new enterprise its fullest moral 
.support. The name of the Club is to be associ- 
ated with that of the author upon the title page 
of “The Birds of California” and the work is to 
be, in so far as it is possible, a cooperative one. 
With characteristic energ}' the author 
launched the canvasS for the new work in .San 
Francisco immediately upon receivingtheClub’s 
endorsement and under the patronage of the 
Messrs. Mailliard has succeeded in enlisting 
enough influential support to assure a good be- 
ginning and to justif}' the expectation of a 
general public interest. He has now gone to 
Pasadena and Los .Vngeles to develop the local 
interest there, and expects at the close of a six 
weeks campaign to complete the organization 
of The Binls of California Publishing Conipany 
which is to finance the !iew undertaking. In a 
succeeding issue of this magazine we shall 
expect Mr. Dawson to set forth in detail the 
scope and specifications of the proposed work, 
as well as to tell us more particularly how 
Cooper Club members may cooperate. 
PF B L 1 C AT I ( ) X S R K V I Iv W 1 v D 
XoTES ON THE Birds ok Pim.a Countn', 
.Vrizona. By Stephen Sargp;nt Visher. 
[From The Auk, vol. XXVI 1, July 1910, jjp. 
279-288.] 
This list of 127 species covers a part of the 
ground that was treated in great detail by W. 
F. I). .Scott in The Auk ior 1889-88, and is pub- 
lished partly for the purpose of adding several 
species not included in .Scott’s list, and largely 
(according to the introduction) with “the de- 
sire to add a mite to the far too meagre knowl- 
edge of the habits and songs of many interest- 
ing birds.” .\s it is seldom that more than a 
line or tw'o is devoted to a species, this phase of 
the subject is perhaps not entered into as 
exhaustively as might be expected from the in- 
troductory remark. Tw’o species are here re- 
corded from .\rizona for the first time, the 
White-headed Woodpecker an<l the (lolden 
Plover, neither from specimens actuallv se- 
cured. The list is all through compared with 
that of .Scott’s and it is put forward largely as a 
compilation of the additional ornithological 
notes and information accumulated since the 
publication of the latter. Vet we find numer- 
ous species recorded precisely as .Scott treated 
them, but placed in the category of those found 
under different conditions. 
The ( Ireen-tailed Towhee, Lutescent Warbler, 
and Vellow-headed Blackbird are casually men- 
tioned as breeding in the vicinity of Tucson, 
records of sufficient im])ortance to merit more 
detailed accounts-— to sav the least. .So also 
with Mr. Visher's working out of the distribu- 
tion of \-arious closely related sub-s])ecies. To 
say that Dendroica auduboni nigrifrons is “res- 
ident” on the mountain tops, while H. auduboni 
auduboni nests in the vallej s, that Thalaenop- 
tilus nuttalli nitidus breeds in the mountains 
and /’. nuttalli nuttalli in the valle 3 's, and that 
Sialia inexicana oceidentalis breeds in the 
spruces and .S', tu. bairdi in the pines, is, per- 
haps, definite enough: but these are positive 
statements that recpiire much field work and 
the collecting of man 3 ’ specimens to back them 
up before they can be expected to be generalh' 
accepted. 
( )n the whole, the important records are not 
put forward in .such a way as to invite confi- 
dence in them, the statements regarding cer- 
tain of the species are exactly such as ha\ e 
alread 3 ' been published about the .same birds in 
the same general region, and the comments 
upon others are of absolute unimportance. 
This list does not .seem to have been carefidlv 
considered, and might well have been left unpub- 
lished. — II. .S. .S. 
Water Birds of the \’icinitv of Point 
Pinos, Caihfornia, by Roi.i,o Howard Beck. 
(Proceedings Calif. .Vcad. .Sciences, 4th sen, 
\'ol. iii, pp. 57-72: issued ,Sep. 17, PHD). 
In this paper we are provided with the most 
important contribution to a knowledge of the 
oceanic bird-life of California since the appear- 
ance of the last one of Loomis’s. series of papers, 
in December, 1900. During the past seven 
years Beck, in his work for the California 
Academy of .Sciences, has spent all put together 
29 months in collecting water birds of Monte- 
re 3 ' Bay, with Pacific Drove as a basis. The 
results of his work in sjieciniens, up to the ,San 
