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52 THE CONDOR VoL. X The following notice appeared in the Port- land OregonJan for December 8, x9o7: "A consignment of European song birds was received last week by C. F. pfluger, secretary of the Portland Songbird Club. The consign- ment consisted of song thrushes, chaff and gold- finches, black caps and skylarks. The birds were imported direct from the Hanover district in Germany and from England. Seventy pairs of the birds were placed in the aviary at the City Park to be sheltered until Spring, when they will be liberated. Sixty pairs of skylarks were also forwarded to bird clubs in Washing- ton, Yamhill, Marion, Clatsop and Multnomah Counties, where they will later be set free. "The Portland Club is also making arrange- ments for the importation of mocking birds, which are expected to reach this city early next Spring. Much good will result from the addition of these birds, as they are known to be effective insect exterminators, and are act- ive, hardy and well adapted to the climate of this section." Perhaps some such idiotic procedure as the above accounts for the record of the Chaffinch at Monterey (see CONDOR VIII, March, i9o6 , p. 58). The next thing we know we will have Chaf- finches and Goldfinches to deal with along with the "English Sparrow problem." The Audubon Societies should bend their efforts against the introduction of foreign birds, if they wish to keep our native avifauna intact. Mr. Finley suggests 'that the popularity of the introduction idea in Oregon is probably due to the importatio n of the "China Pheas- ant,"so successful, at least from the sports- man's standpoint. PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED AMERICAN BIRDS [ STUDIED AND PHOTo- GRAPHED FROM LIFE[ By WILLIAM LOVELL FINLEY [ Illustrated from Photographs by I Herman T. Bohlman I and the Author I Charles Scribner's Sons[New York [ I9O7 (our copy received December xo, i9o7). Pp. ?-xw, t-256, i27 halftones on book plate paper. ($t.5o.) This is the most attractive popular bird book of the year. In fact it contains the greatest number of photographic illustrations, and illus- trations of the greatest scientific value, of any book we have ever seen. The following well- stated'epitome of the scope of the book consti- tutes part of the Prefatory Note: "An important and sometimes difficult phase in the study of bird life is to observe accurately and report without false interpretation the habits and actions of birds. The naturalist who uses the camera in the field often has the advantage of backing his observations with proof (not an unimportant thing in nature writ- ing of today), and if heproduees good authen- tic photographs, one may be quite sure they were not secured without patient waiting and a careful study of his subjects. "In this book no attempt has been made to include all the different bird families, but a series of representative birds from the hum- mingbird to the eagle has been selected. Each chapter represents a close and continued study with camera and notebook at the home of some bird or group of birds,--a trne life history of each species. It is the bird as a live creature, its real wild personality and character, that I have tried to portray. "Many of these studies were made in the West, but in the list of birds treated an effort has been made to get a selection that is national in scope. In the popular mind a song sparrow is a song sparrow from ocean to ocean, yet scientifically he represents over a dozen subspecies, according to the part of the coun- try in which he lives. To the ordinary bird lover, however, a robin is the same east and west, and the same is true of the chickadee, flicker, wren, grosbeak, vireo, warbler, hawk, and others dealt with in the following chap- ters." The twenty-one chapters are titled as fol- lows: The Hummingbird at Home; The Chick- adee; Photographing Flickers; The Yellow- throat; A Family of Grosbeaks; The Red-tailed Hawk; Jack Crow; The Owl, Bird of Night; Rearing a Wren Family; The Weaver of the West;Jimmy the Butcher-bird; The Warbler and His Ways; Kingfishers; Sparrow Row; Two Studies in Blue; Basket Makers, The Vireo and Oriole-; Phoebe; A Pair of Consins--Robin and Thrush; Gull Habits; In a Heron Village; The Eagle of Mission Ridge. We feel a sort of pride in looking over this book, for it is a product of the West. Both Mr. Finley and Mr. Bohlman are western students, and the present results of their work is in no way inferior to that of the East or that of Europe. We heartily recommend the book to everyone.- J. G. EVOLUTION AND ANIMAL LIFE I an ele- mentary discussion of I facts, processes, laws and theories relating[ to the life and evolu- tion of animals I by [ DAVID STARR JORDAN I President of Leland Stanford Junior Univer- sity I and ] VERNON LYMAN KELLOGG [ Pro- fessor of Entomology, and Lecturer in Bionom- ics I in Leland Stanford Junior University [ [quotation] I [vignette] [ New York [ D. Ap- pleton and Company I x9o7 [our copy received Oct. t, ?9o7]; PP. ?-xIi, 1-49o , 3 colored plates (of birds), 298 text figures. No person can be a thoroly successful special-