Birds of the Boston Public Garden.
Birds of the Boston Public Garden. A Study in Migration. By Horace Winslow Wright, with an Introduction by Bradford Torrey, and illustrations. 238 pages. $1.00 net. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York.
The Journal has no hesitation in designating this volume as one of the most satisfactory local lists of birds ever published. For nine years the author has been a constant student of the migration of birds at the Boston Public Garden, adjoining Boston Common. Frequent excursions through that delightful locality in the early morning at the season when the birds are traveling northward or southward have made Mr. Wright perfectly familiar with the conditions which govern their arrival and departure. The data which he gives are valuable for all New England students, as well as a service beyond estimate for the young people who are making their first observations in that locality. A description of the Public Garden and the vegetation it contains is of exceeding interest. The illustrations are excellent half-tone engravings of the trees which attract different rare species of birds and the locations which they love. Particulars of the noteworthy features of the migrations for a series of years are given, both from the personal observations of the author and from the added testimony of other reliable observers.
More than three-fourths of the volume is devoted to an annotated list of the birds of the Boston Public Garden and incidentally of the Common, in migration, 1900-1908. This list is exhaustive and authority for numerous records and dates is freely given. An examination of the list is of unusual interest on account of its clearness and completeness, as well as the systematic order in which it is arranged. Many birds which one would expect to visit the Public Garden frequently in migration are noted as very rare. On the other hand, birds often are recorded as common which one would not expect to find their way to that locality. The book, as a whole, is of great value to the bird student, and it is so well done that it is worth a place in the library of any ornithologist.
W. H. B.