May, 1910 
EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS 
111 
THE CONDOR 
An Illustrated Magazine 
of Western Ornithology 
Publisht Bi-Monthly by the Cooper Ornithologi- 
cal Club of California. 
JOSEPH GRINNELL, Editor, Berkeley, Cal. 
J. EUGENE LAW. Business Manager, Hollywood, Cal. 
W. LEE CHAMBERS, Business Manager, Santa 
Monica, Cal. 
HARRY S. SWARTH 
ROBERT B. ROCKWELL 
Hollywood, California: Publisht May 17, 1910 
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EDITORIAL NOTES AND NEWS 
Word has been received from Mr. Edmund 
Heller, who has just returned to Washington 
at the close of his year in the field, collecting 
African mammals in the party headed by Col- 
onel Roosevelt. That the expedition was 
highly successful in the collection of zoologi- 
cal specimens is well known, but Mr. Heller 
also speaks most enthusiastically of the many 
enjoyable features of the trip. The party 
proved very congenial and no serious mishaps 
or accidents were suffered at any time — sub- 
jects for congratulation on so long a trip in 
such a difficult country. Mr. Heller’s present 
address is the United States National Museum, 
Department of Mammals, but he anticipates a 
year’s work on the specimens secured, most of 
which time will be spent in London and Ber- 
lin. 
Mr. Walter P. Taylor, with two assistants, 
leaves on May 15 for a summer’s trip into the 
Warner Mountains of northeastern California. 
The expedition will collect birds, mammals 
and reptiles for the University of California 
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, in which in- 
stitution Mr. Taylor is Assistant Curator of 
Mim nils. The results of this trip should 
certainly be of great interest, especially so 
taken in connection with the collections made 
by him in northwestern Nevada during the 
past summer. 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED 
A History of the Birds of Kent. By 
Norman F. Ticehurst, M. A., F. R. C. S., 
F. Z. S. , M. B. O. U. With twenty-four plates 
and a map. Witherby & Co.. London, 1909 — 
8 vo. pp. i-lvi + 1 — 568. Price 21s. net. 
This is a carefully detailed account of the 
birds found in a comparatively limited terri- 
tory (the County of Kent, we are told, com- 
prises some 1554 square miles). In the intro- 
duction descriptions are given of the geology, 
topography, and physiography of the region, as 
well as historical sketches of the various 
museums and collections contained in the 
county, while several pages are devoted to a 
discussion of the somewhat complex migratory 
movements of the birds, as here observed. 
In the 557 pages in which they are treated 
in detail, 312 species are included, as well as 
forty-two “doubtful species.” The author ap- 
pears to be concerned mainly in the manner of 
occurrence of the birds listed, and this, as well 
as the historical aspect of the case, is treated in 
the greatest detail. In the cases of the rarer 
species each individual specimen seems to have 
been lookt up, and verified or discredited, as it 
might be, so carefully that the book should 
certainly be considered as authoritative in 
this regard. The author is certainly com- 
mendably conservative in declining to accept 
doubtful records, and need hardly apologize 
for discrediting the one relating to the alleged 
occurrence of the White-winged Crossbill {Lox- 
ia leucoptera), on the basis of birds seen by 
“an anonymous correspondent’s friend’s gar- 
dener”! 
Nesting and other habits are dismist with 
but slight consideration, for reasons given in 
the preface, tho in some instances — notably the 
House Sparrow and the Starling, as of interest 
in this country — the question as to the harmful 
or beneficial nature of the bird is discust at 
some length. 
In regard to the “vexed question of no- 
menclature”, binomials are adhered to except 
where two or more geographical races of the 
same species have occurred in the county, or 
where the British form of a species is recog- 
nized as distinct from the continental, in 
which cases the trinomial is employed — such 
exceptions being so numerous that it seems as 
tho it would have been simpler to have used 
the latter system tliruout. 
The illustrations, of birds and of general 
views of the country, are attractive and inter- 
esting; while a quite extensive bibliography 
and an appended map add much to the value 
of the book. Altogether such a work, carefully 
done as this appears to have been, cannot fail 
to be of great value. Altho individuals may 
regret the absence of more extended comment 
on phases of the subject in which they are 
more directly interested, still the recording of 
facts, the statement of conditions as they have 
been and as they are, cannot fail to be of 
greater and greater value as time goes on, and 
the future worker in British ornithology should 
find such a book as this of the greatest assist- 
ance in his labors. H. S. S. 
| Associate Editors 
