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82 THE CONDOR VoL. XII to the utmost, and the resultant report discloses the domestic life of the king of birds to its uttermost details. The nest under observation was built on a cliff in a deer forest in Scotland, and a blind was constrncted near by, affording concealment lo observer and camera, where many long hours must have been spent in watching the daily progress of the young bird. The account is written in most simple and con- vincing style, with none of the imaginative flights that so often mar such observations, and is a substantial and valuable addition to our knowledge of the life history of a most interesting bird. The accompanying photographs are beautiful and interesting, almost telling the story by themselves. Considering the large amount of dark, rainy weather encountered during the period of observation, the photographic results seem really remarkable.--H. S.S. ANNOTATED LIST OF THE WATER BIRDS OF WELD, MORGAN AND ADAMS COUNTIES, COL- ORADO, SOUTH TO THE FIRST SECTIONAL LINE BELOW THE FORTIETH PARALLEL. BY A. H. FELOER. W'ith three maps. (From 27?e xvI, no. 3, July, 1909, pp. 272-291). The list is a long one, especially so for a sec- tion of the country that we are not ac- customed to think of as being particularly well situated for the abundant occurrence of water fowl. The recent abundance of these birds is attributed largely to the settlement and farm- ing of the country, with the attendant con- struction of reservoirs and irrigating systems. Besides the author's personal observations on the birds of the region during eleven years-- 1898 to 1909--he has drawn upon all the pub- lisht sources of information available, making the list authoritative and apparently quite complete. Many species of waders known to b;eed only in the far north were observed in varying num- bers thru the su miner, giving rise to the suspicion that they might be found nesting in the region. While this may prove to be true in some in- stances we believe it to be unsafe to assrune as much from the mere occurrence of the birds during the summer months. Individuals of even such northern species as the Western Sandpiper and the Northern Phalarope are known to spend the stunmet as far south as southern California, and such of these as have been. collected have always proved to be non- breeding bikds.--H. S.S. ]?COLOG OF THE HOATZIN. BY C. WILLIAM BEEBE [?Zoologica, vol. 1, no. 2, Dec., 1909, pp. 45-66, Figs. 7-19]. This contribution to the life history of an exceedingly curious and little known bird contains much of great inter- est. A bird with its crop replaced by a "gizzard," that uses its wings as hands and has claws on its "fingers," that has the large, heavy feet of a ground dweller and still lives in the tree tops, but can swim and dive if need be, is enough of an anomaly to somewhat pre- pare us for the author's conclusion, startling as it appears, that the Hoatzin' is very imperfectly adapted to its surroundings. This appears to be true to such a degree that it is only the'total absence of active enemies that enables the bird to survive. The numerous excellent photographs add greatly to the interest of the paper' Some of these depict the Hoatzin in life. Others from prepared specimems, show peculiarities of strut- nre, such as the curiously modified sternum, clearly illustrating the feeble flying powers of the bird, and the claw-armed wings of the immature bird, used in clambering thru the branches. ? A map illustrates the distribution of the species as known at present, And a bibliogra- phy of pertinent literature is appended to the paper.--H. S.S. RACKET FORMATION IN TAIL-FEATHERS OF MoTMOTS. BY C. WILLIAM BEEBE [----Zoolog- ica, vol. I, no. 5, January, 1910, pp. 141-149, figs. 43-47]. The strange habit of voluntarily mutilating their tail feathers, peculiar to the Motmots, has long been a subject of interest to ornithologists, 'the mathematical regularity with which tim trimming is done, and the object of the peculiar ornamention, being alike food for speculation. In the present paper Mr. Beebe tells of certain experiments carried ont on a living bird, which seem to cast much light on some phases of the question. As re?narkt by the author, the fact that before the denuda- tion the feathers at the point of trimming are narrower than elsewhere, has been cited as a possible example of the inheritance of ac- quired characters, the theory being that generations of trimming have produced nar- rower feathers,. which would, presumably, in fnrther generations, be gradually replaced by others entirely bare at that point. On the face of it this theory appears to ex- plain the existing conditions very plausibly, but Mr. Beebe's experiments seem to show that the acceptance of such a belief is but placing the cart before the horse--a complete reversal of cause and effect. Lack of space forbids our giving an outline of the experiments carried out, bnt the conclu- sions reacht are briefly as follows: that a cer- tain portion of the central rectrices shows a congenital degeneration of barbs and barbules; that'these barbs are strong enough to adhere to the shaft during the growth of the feather, but too weak to survive the manipulation received during preening. Hence that the regularity with which the trimming is done is entirely in- voluntary on the part of the bird, and not at