Recently published Ornithological Works. 5 47 
A. O. U. Check-List ( e Auk/ 1899, p. 98) the Divers (the 
Urinatoridae of 1898) became Gaviidae; whereas elsewhere 
throughout these numbers Gavia is used for the Loons, 
which is confusing. Mr. Abbot H. Thayer sets forth his 
arguments against the Banner-mark Theory,” in reply to a 
paper by Mr. Ernest Seton Thompson in f The Auk 9 for 1897 
(cf. Ibis, 1898, p. 159), in which it was suggested that the 
colours of the upper parts were protective, whereas those of 
the underparts—-exhibited by birds in flight or when raising 
their wings—were directive. Mr. Thayer's reply is more 
amusing, perhaps, than he intended it to be. Mr. Outram 
Bangs shows solid work in his review of the Three-toed 
Woodpeckers of North America ; and Mr. C. W. Richmond 
acknowledges the researches of Mr. Sherborn in some further 
remarks on the date of Lacepede’s f Tableaux 9 : a subject 
dear to searchers after priority. We have always maintained 
that the Herring-Gull of America cannot be separated 
specifically from the bird of North-western Europe, and it is 
satisfactory to find Larus argentatus smithsonianus dethroned 
hy a good observer (pp. 63 and 169). 
72. Bangs on Birds from the Sierra Nevada of Santa 
Marta. 
[On some new or rare Birds from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, 
Columbia. By Outram Baugs. Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, xiii. p. 91.] 
Mr. Bangs’s fourth contribution to this highly interesting 
avifauna gives us an account of a collection of 1300 specimens 
recently made by his collector at altitudes of from 3000 to 
15,000 feet on the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta. Sixty- 
eight species are recorded, and the following new species and 
subspecies are characterized :— 
Pharomachrus festatus, Metallura districta, Ochthodiceta 
pernioc , Hapalocercus paulus , Myiopatis montensis, Pipreola 
aureipectus decora , Sclerurus albigularis propinquus , Cono- 
pophaga browni, Scytalopus latebricofa , Haplospiza nivaria , 
Cinclus rivularis , Troglodytes monticola, and Merula albi - 
ventris fusa. 
