Mar., 1915 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED 
newer work, “Wild Life Conservation”, are 
unique books, and they have to be placed 
in a class by themselves. The fact that they 
are a contribution to a cause, from a man 
who is devoting his life to that cause, adds 
interest and force to them. The commend- 
atory criticism of another great champion 
of wild life, Theodore Roosevelt, is to be 
found in the Outlook for January 20, 1915. 
— H. C. Bryant. 
Distribution and Migration of North 
American Rails and Their Allies. By 
Wells W. Cooke. Contribution from the 
Bureau of Biological Survey. [Bull. U. S. 
Dept. Agric. no. 128, pp. 1-50, 19 figs, (maps) 
in text. Issued September 25, 1914.] 
This paper is a continuation of Professor 
Cooke’s valuable work on the distribution 
and migration of North American birds. 
Previous publications of the Survey along 
this line have dealt with the warblers, 
ducks, geese and swans, shore birds, herons 
and their allies, and the egrets. Many 
papers concerned with the distribution of 
North American sparrows have been pub- 
lished in Bird-Lore. 
A total of forty-four forms are considered 
in the present contribution, which deals 
with the rails. Of these twenty-one are con- 
fined to the West Indies or Middle America, 
and two species are casual in Greenland, 
leaving twenty-one forms (18 species and 3 
subspecies) which range into or through the 
United States. The ranges of the extra- 
limital forms and those of casual occur- 
ence are briefly considered, while the ones 
occurring in the United States are treated 
more or less at length, according to the 
amount of information which is available 
concerning them. 
The general, breeding, and winter ranges, 
spring and fall migrations, and dates upon 
which eggs or young have been taken or 
observed, are considered in turn. Maps 
showing the localities from which birds 
have been recorded are provided for each 
of the species occurring in the United 
States, and for the Spotted Crake of Europe. 
These show the breeding records, occur- 
rences in summer, in winter, and wintering 
or resident records. Tables of the spring 
and fall migrations, showing the numbers 
of years for which the records have been 
kept, and the average and extreme dates 
of first and last appearance, are provided 
for the better known species. For reasons 
unknown to the reviewer the Humboldt Bay 
record of the California Clapper Rail 
(Cooper and Suckley, 1859, p. 246) is 
omitted. 
107 
Altogether the paper is a valuable contri- 
bution to distributional ornithology and an 
important reference manual. It is to be 
hoped that other groups may soon be 
treated in a similar manner and that the 
publications already issued, when repub- 
lished, may be provided with distributional 
maps as in the present paper. — Tracy I. 
Storer. 
Some Recent Publications of the Bureau 
of Biological Survey. — Mr. McAtee’s paper * 1 
on “How to Attract Birds in North- 
eastern United States” is the first of 
a series of publications which the Biological 
Survey plans to issue on similar topics. 
When the series is completed the whole of 
our country will have been covered and the 
special methods to be adopted in each re- 
gion thoroughly discussed. 
The fencing of bird havens and methods 
of supplying breeding places are first de- 
scribed. Two types of bathing and drink- 
ing vessels are figured and the necessity for 
a water supply pointed out; then the matter 
of food supply is taken up. Under “Artifi- 
cial Food Supply” the materials suitable for 
artificial feeding in order to attract the sev- 
eral kinds of birds in the region are named, 
and some of the devices for offering the 
food are shown in the accompanying illus- 
trations. The “Natural Food Supply” is 
next considered, first as regards seed-eat- 
ing birds, and then as regards the fruit- 
eating species. The paper concludes with a 
table showing the seasons of fruits, both 
native and introduced, which are available 
in the region and attractive to the birds 
found there, and a second table of the fruits 
which are useful to protect the commercial 
species by serving as counter attractions. 
The publication of future bulletins in this 
series will be awaited with interest. 
In “Game Laws for 1914” 2 Dr. Palmer and 
his assistants have presented their fifteenth 
annual report on the progress of game leg- 
islation in the United States and Canada. 
The bulletin presents a brief but compre- 
hensive review of the measures enacted 
during the year, arranging them by subjects 
under the several states and in a uniform 
style to facilitate comparison. The legis- 
lation of 1914 was smaller in amount than 
for any year since 1906. In general it was 
'McAtee, W. L., How to Attract Birds in 
Northeastern United States. U. S. Dept. 
Agric., Farmers’ Bull. 621, 15 pp., 11 text figs., 
1 map. Issued December 14, 1914. 
2 Palmer, T. S., Bancroft, W. F., and Earn- 
shaw, F. L. Game Laws for 1914. U. S. Dept. 
Agric., Farmers' Bull. 628, 52 pp. Issued 
October 20, 1914. 
