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Mar., 1915 PUBLICATIONS REVIEWED', 107 newer work, "Wild Life Conservation", are unique books, and they have to be placed in a class by themselves. The fact that they are a contribution to a cause, from a man who is devoting his life to that cause, adds interest and force to them. The commend- atory criticism of another great ct/ampion of wild life, Theodore Roosevelt, is to be found in the Outlook for January 20, 1915. --H. C. BRYANT. DZSTRIBUTION AND ?'V[IGRATION OF NORTH AMERICAN RAILS AND THEIR ALLIES. By WELLS W. COOKE. Contribution from the Bureau of Biological Survey. [Bull. U.S. Dept. Agric. no. 128, pp. 1-50, 19 figs. (maps) in text. Issued September 25, 1914.] This.paper is a continuation of Professor Cooke's valuable work on the distribution and migration of North American birds. Previous publications of the Survey along this line have dealt with the warblers, ducks, geese and swans, shore birds, herons and their allies, and the egrets. Many papers concerned with the distribution of North American sparrows have been pub- lished in Bird-Lore. A total of forty-four forms are considered in the present contribution, which deals with the rails. Of these twenty-one are con- fined to the West Indies or Middle America, and two species are casual in Greenland, leaving twenty-one forms (18 species and 3 subspecies) which range into or through the United States. The ranges of the extra- limital forms and those of casual occur- ence are briefly considered, while the ones occurring in the United States are treated more or less at length, according to the amount of information which is available concerning them. The general, breeding, and winter ranges, spring and fall migrations, and dates upon which eggs or young have been taken or observed, are considered in turn. Maps showing the localities from which birds have been recorded are provided for each of the species occurring in the United States, and for the Spotted Crake of Europe. These show the breeding records, occur- rences in summer, in winter, and wintering or resident records. Tables of the spring and fall migrations, showing the numbers of years for which the records have been kept, and the average and extreme dates of first and last appearance, are provided for the better known species. For reasons unknown to the reviewer the Humboldt Bay record of the California Clapper Rail (Cooper and Suckley, 1859, p. 246) is omitted. Altogether the paper is a valuable contri- bution to distributional ornithology and an important reference manual. It is to be hoped that other groups may soon be treated in a similar manner and that the publications already issued, when repub- lished, may be provided with distributional maps as in the present paper.--TRAcY I. STORER. SOME RECENT PURLICATIONS OF THE BUREAU OF BIOLOGICAL SUEVEY.--Mr. McAtee's paper ? on "How to Attract Birds in North- eastern United States" is the first of a series of publications which the Biological Survey plans to issue on similar topics. When the series is completed the whole of our country will have been covered and the special methods to be adopted in each re- gion thoroughly discussed. The fencing of bird havens and methods of supplying breeding places are first de- scribed. Two types of bathing and drink- ing vessels are figured and the necessity for a water supply pointed out; then the matter of food supply is taken up. Under "Artifi- cial Food Supply" the materials suitable for artificial feeding in order to attract the Sev- eral kinds of birds in the region are named, and some of the devices for offering the food are shown in the accompanying illus- trations. The "Natural Food Supply" is next considered, first as regards seed-eat- ing birds, and then as regards the fruit- eating species. The paper concludes with a table showing the seasons of fruits, both native and introduced, which are available in the region and attractive to the birds found there, and a second table of the fruits which are useful to protect the commercial species by serving as counter attractions. The publication of future bulletins in this series will be awaited with interest. In "Game Laws for 1914 "-? Dr. Palmer and his assistants have presented their fifteenth annual report on the progress of game leg- islation in the United States and Canada. The bulletin presents a brief bui compre- hensive review of the measures enacted during the year, arranging them by subjects under the several states and in a uniform style to facilitate comparison. The legis- lation of 1914 was smaller in amount than for any year since 1906. In general it was ?McAtee, W. L., How to Attract Birds in Northeastern United States. U. S. Dept. Agric., Farmers' Bull 621, 15 pp., 11 text figs., 1 map. Issued December 14, 1914. 2Palmer, T. S., Bancroft, W. r., and Earn- shaw, F. k. Game Laws for 1914. U.S. Dept. Agric., Farmers' Bull. 628, 52 pp. Issued October 20, 1914.