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 Nov., 1913 PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED study exhibits Mrs. Bailey in her happiest vein. John Woodcock shows a splendid photo- graph of Sharp-tailed Grouse obtained by him in Manitoba and we rejoice with him, in a page and a half of print, that this difficult and decreasing bird has been brought to camera. Maunsell S. Crosby has a few crisp notes on a pair of Holboell Grebes captured and photographed at Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Arthur A. Allen of Ithaca details an enter- taining experience with a pair of nesting Blue-headed Vireos. The Migration and Plumage studies are concerned this month with the Harris and the Golden-crowned Sparrows. In this con- nection we are pained to note a glaring in- accuracy in the descriptive title of the colored frontispiece. The plate in question is a well executed piece by Louis Agassiz Fuertes de- picting an adult and an immature bird of each of the above-named species. The a.dult in each instance is labelled "adult male," nd the immature bird (whether male or female, mat.- ters little) is declared to be an "adult fe- male." Of course this blunder is not charg- able to Fuertes who knows his birds as we know our letters, nor to Chapman who refers to the figures correctly in his text further on. It must be due, therefore to some irresponsible third party to whom this important task was entrusted. In a. magazine which caters espe- cially to youth and from which our young people are likely to receive impressions which cannot be shaken off, such a misleading sign- board at the beginning of the path is peculi- arly unfortunate. In reviewing our own Corn)oR (July-August, 1913) the veteran critic, "T. S. P.," to whom we owe an ancient debt of gratitude for gen- erous consideration and liberal praise, cle- votea considerable space to Dawson's article, "The All-Day Test at Santa Barbara" and expresses his dissatisfaction with methods and tendencies therein displayed. In the first place he deprecates the use of the auto- mobile as an aid to bird study, though whether he considers that this device takes an un- fair advantage of the birds or whether he harbors the suspicion, in common with cer- tain clergymen, that "one of the automobile crowd" must, ipso factq, be addicted to high balls and therefore liable to see birds double, our reviewer fails to state. Moreover, he suspects the "accuracy of results when Sand- pipers, Linnets and Redwings are recorded by. hundreds, when only eight meadowlarks and four English Sparrows were observed in comparison with 40 Black-headed Gros- beaks." This is amazing, perhaps, to one not thoroughly conversant with local conditions at Santa Barbara; nevertheless we need only to remind "T. S. P." who was a Califorman that Sandpipers, Linnets and Redwings are precisely the birds one does see by hum dreds; that Meadowlarks are busy feeding first broods by May 5th and so are silent and secretive; that Black-headed Grosbeaks were excessively abundant last spring; and that presumably because of the pre-occupation of the field by Linnets, the English Sparrows have never found effective or numerous lodgement in Santa Barbara. One has actually to hunt for them. Beyond this, however, there seems to be a real ground of misunderstand- ing as between Palmer and Dawson as to what constitutes the proper object of an all- day test. Dr. Palmer is influenced by the Bird-Lore census standards where enumera- tion of individjals has always been deemed the important thing. Dawson has always stood for the enumeration of species as the important thing in these all-day tests and he designated the results so obtained as horizons some time before "bird censuses" were talked of. The figures placed opposite 'the names in the CoNOR list were, therefore, approxi- mate and .not intended for summation, al- thougla the writer was, perhaps, at fault in net having so noted. That this is the ground of misunderstanding appears further. "Rather it would seem that combined observation of several persons in a definite area where each could take time to cover his territory thoroughly and follow up and observe the various birds, would give a better idea of the number of species and individuals present en a given date." No doubt, but that is to change essentially the character of the insti- tution under consideration and to criticise it not for what it is but for what it is not. An extended and painstaking census is one thing, and a very good one in its way, but a "bird horizon" is a different thing and also very good. In a bird horizon one tests not enly the resources of a given region but he tests his own resources, his ability' to find the birds and to recognize them when found un- der certain definite limitations of time. It is, confessedly, a sort of sporting proposi tion, bearing about the same relation to the year's work in ornithology that horse racing does to plowing. Plowing is doubtless to be commended both in man and beast, neverthe- less the evolution of the horse is supposed to owe more to the incentive of the track than to the ancient furrow. And, anyhow, bird horizoning as an occasional indulgence does give zest to the ornithological pursuits whether detailed or general. The value of such a magazine as Bird-Lore in bringing new talent to the front is clearly shown in an article describing "A Pet Road- runner," by George Miksch Sutton, a lad of 15. Here is a clever, promising piece work and we confidently expect to see "Mas-