134 Bird -Lore with which it is embellished, there may be differences of opinion. — F. E. T.. Beal. On the Birds' Highway. By Reginald Heber Howe, Jr. With Photographic Illustrations by the Author, and a Frontispiece in color from a Painting by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. This is a contribution to the class of literature which John Burroughs and Bradford Torrey have made so deservedly ly popular. It cannot, however, be said that the author has reached the standard of his prototypes. His observations were made in the Atlantic states from Vir- ginia to Maine, and his descriptions bear evidence of sympathy with his subject. The illustrations include an admirable frontispiece of Chickadees by Louis Fuertes, thirteen full - page half-tones, for the most part illustrating the locali- ties described, and numerous half-tone ' thumb-nail pictures ' in the text, largely taken from mounted birds. Some of the latter are effective ; others are too small or too indistinct to be of value to those who would need them. An appendix gives nominal lists of the birds observed at Bristol, R. L : Wash- ington, D. C ; Chevy Chase, Md ; Hub- bardstown, Mass., and Chateaugay Lake, N. Y.— F. M. C. The Danger of Introducing Noxious Animals and Birds. By T. S. Palmer. Yearbook of the Department of Agri- culture for 1898, pp., 87-110; I half- tone plate and 6 cuts in the text. Birds as Weed Destroyers. By Syl- vester D. JuDD. Yearbook of the De- partment of Agriculture for i8g8, pp., 221-232 ; I half-tone plate and 7 cuts in the text. Economic Relations of Birds and Their Food By F. E. L. Beal. Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Twenty- fourth Annual Meeting of the New Jersey State Horticultural Society, Janu- ary 4 and 5, 1899 As long as man's attitude toward nature is the standpoint of dollars and cents, bird-lovers will welcome every fact which places them in possession of a fresh argu- ment to be used where appeals to senti- ment are of no avail. It is, therefore, with great satisfaction that we receive these sound, convincing papers on economic zoology. Dr. Palmer's paper has long been needed and, fortunately or unfortunately, so unanswerable are the facts which he presents, that one would imagine universal knowledge of them would be all that was necessary to avert further danger from the introduction of exotic species. The subject, however, should receive the prompt attention of legislators, in order that it may be duly placed under the control of the proper authorities — obvi- ously the officials of the Biologic Survey of the United States Department of Agri- culture. In giving us the results of his studies of the food of certain seed-eating birds, Dr Judd at the same time places their economic importance so far beyond dis- pute that we trust every agriculturist in the land may become fj^miliar with his- facts and figures. None of the many valuable papers issued by the Biological Survey has had a more obvious value than this one. In his lecture before the New Jersey- Horticultural Society, Professor Beal dis- cusses unprejudicedly birds' power for good or evil. ,He shows that while in- sects, especially certain noxious species, have greatly increased since the settle- ment of this country, birds have decreased, and that in order to restore the balance disturbed by man, an increase in the number of our birds is greatly to be desired, — F". M. C. Book News Every lover of animals must rejoice in the phenomenal success achieved by Ernest Seton Thompson's 'Wild Animals I have Known.' Although published only last October, over 14,000 copies have been sold, and the book's popularity increases as its charm becomes more widely known. Mr. Thompson has done more to bridge the gap between human life and animal life than any writer we have known. One has only to read his work to be- come convinced of one's kinship with, the lower forms of life.
