18S 
THE CONDOR 
Vol. XVI 
It is likely I’ll have to go a hundred miles 
farther south to make the closer acquaint- 
ance of a series. 
The one species of goose I’ve taken here 
is much different from any of our Califor- 
nia visitors. They stand about on surf- 
beaten rocky points like the gulls, the male 
pure white and the female dark. But the 
Cinnamon Teal swing over bunches of tules 
as do the flocks in fall at Los Banos, before 
they leave for the south and the shooting 
season begins. The call of the curlew, and 
the sweep of the sanderling flocks, carries 
one back to the Alameda marshes; but the 
hoarse penguin call, and circling albatross 
in view from my window, bring me back 
again with suddenness to the Southern 
Hemisphere. 
Sincerely, 
R. H. Beck. 
Ancud, Chiloe Island, Chile. April 26, 1914. 
PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED 
The Birds of North axd Middle America: 
I [etc., 8 lines] | By | Rorert Ridgway, | 
Curator, Division of Birds. ] 1 Part vi. | 
Family Picidae — The Woodpeckers. ] Fami- 
ly Capitonidae — The Barbets. | Family 
Ramphastidae — The Toucans. ] Family Buc- 
conidae — The Puff Birds. | Family Galbuli- 
dae — The Jacamars. | Family Alcedinidae — 
hhie Kingfishers. | Family Todidae — The 
Todies, j Family Momotidae — The Motmots. 
Family Caprimulgidae — The Goatsuckers. 
I Family Nyctibiidae — The Potoos. | Family 
Tytonidae — The Barn Owls. | Family Bu- 
bonidae — The Eared Owls. | ] Washing- 
ton: ] Government Printing Office. | 1914. [ 
=U. S. Nation. Mus., Bull. No. 50, Part vi, 
pp. xx + 882, 36 plates: “issued April 8, 
1914.’’ 
It is certainly gratifying to the many ad- 
mirers of Mr. Ridgway to note the regular 
appearance of the successive portions of his 
great work, the first of which was published 
nearly fourteen years ago. The latest vol- 
ume, Part VI, of content as indicated in the 
above transcript from the main title page, 
shows the same high standard of treatment 
as in the best of the previous volumes.* 
In the six volumes which have appeared 
to date (as stated in the Preface, page vi, of 
Part VI ), “are treated, in detail (that is, 
with full synonymies and descriptions), be- 
sides the Families above mentioned and the 
* For review.s of previous volumes, see: for Part i, 
Condor, iv, 1902, pp. 22-23; for Part ii. Condor, v. 1903, 
pp. 22-23; for Part in. Condor, vii. 1905, p. 147; for Part 
IV, Condor, x, 1908, p. 53; for Part v, Condor, xiv, 
1912, p. no. 
higher groups to which they, respectively, be- 
long, 520 genera, 2111 species and subspe- 
cies, besides 155 extralimital genera and 478 
extralimital species and subspecies whose 
diagnostic characters are given in the 
'keys’, and their principal synonymy (full 
synonymy in case of the genera) given in 
footnotes.” 
There are a number of interesting rendi- 
tions of systematic status among the higher 
groups, — interpretations which would bear 
much discussion, mainly, in the mind of the 
reviewer, corroborative of Mr. Ridgway’s 
views. Our remarks in the present connec- 
tion are best confined to nomenclatural and 
systematic points likely to be of most in- 
terest to students of western ornithology. 
The yellow-shafted flicker which occurs 
rarely in California pure-blooded, more often 
as a strain in so-called “hybrids”, is re- 
ferred to under the name Boreal Flicker 
(Colaptes auratiis borealis Ridgway), the 
assumption being that our birds are winter 
visitants from the far north (pages 20-22). 
Mr. Ridgway believes that “some California 
specimens are doubtless hybrids of C. aura- 
tus borealis and C. cafer saturatior, whose 
respective ranges adjoin in northern British 
Columbia and southern Alaska.” While the 
“Hybrid Flicker” has been the subject of 
several special essays, a new and exhaustive 
study of the case in the light of modern find- 
ings in chemico-physiology would, in the 
mind of the reviever, very probably result in 
a different systematic treatment of western, 
purely yellow-shafted, examples, as well as 
of “hybrids”. 
As already announced (Ridgway, Proc. 
Biol. Soc. Wash., xxiv, 1911, page 34), a new 
genus is founded for that section of the old 
genus Melanerpes containing the California 
Woodpecker. The latter becomes Balayios- 
phyra formicivora bairdi. This is possibly 
justified in the effort to secure uniformity 
in rank among related bird groups. But the 
continued general tendency towards generic 
refinement does not seem to the reviewer to 
be in line with the development of a clear 
and useful system of classification. 
Bangs’ name, picinus. is adopted for the 
“Western Pileated Woodpecker”. The bird 
of the Pacific Coast from northern California 
to Vancouver Island thus becomes Phloeoto- 
mus pileatus picinus. 
The southern race of the White-headed 
Woodpecker, Xenopicus albolarvatus gravi- 
rostris Grinnell, not admitted to the A. O. U. 
Check-List, is given full recognition by 
Ridgway (page 267). 
The status of the western sapsuckers re- 
