176 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



together with notes on the food they eat that may be considered as 

 ' pro ' and ' con ' the interests of husbandman, gardener, or gamekeeper, 

 and also their local names." A great deal of general information is 

 given in very small compass and at this time, when the economic 

 importance of birds may be said to be on trial, the booklet may be 

 welcomed as dealing very fairly with the eighty species enumerated. 



H. S. G. 



Birds and- the War. By Hugh S. Gladstone, M.A., F.R.S.E., 



F.Z.S., etc. Price 5 s, 



Captain Gladstone has given us a charming little volume on this 

 subject : it is divided into five sections, I. The Utility and Economy of 

 Birds in the War ; II. Sufferings of Birds in the War ; III. Behaviour 

 of Birds in the War Zone ; IV. Effect of the War on Birds ; V. Con- 

 clusion, which comprises what is really a roll of honour of British 

 ornithologists. The author has collected a vast amount of information 

 from scientific publications, as well as from the daily press, and has 

 welded it together into readable form. We note, with interest, that he 

 holds that migration was not seriously affected by the War. This 

 entirely coincides with our own experience, and we cordially support 

 Captain Gladstone in his assertion. Too many writers have found an 

 easy way out of all their difficulties by assigning any rather unusual 

 occurrence to the " War " when a little research into the meteorological 

 conditions would have furnished the correct answer to the problem. The 

 book is light and pleasant reading, and we think it is an excellent thing 

 that the facts therein contained should have been collected together 

 and published in book form so soon after the close of hostilities. 



A Practical Handbook of British Birds. Edited by H. F. 



Witherby, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. Parts I. and H. Price 4s. per 



part. 

 This, the beginning of what promises to be a valuable addition to 

 the literature of the British avifauna, has been written largely by the 

 same ornithologists who wrote the Hand List of British Birds published 

 in 1 91 2. Their new work is compiled on very much the same lines but 

 is wider in its scope, including under each species a description 

 of all stages of plumage, characters and allied forms, field characters, 

 breeding habits, food, distributions, and migrations. A great deal of 

 information on each of these subjects is compressed into each para- 

 graph, and the book should prove a most useful one. Perhaps its 

 greatest value will be in bringing up to date and rendering accessible 

 to field workers the descriptions and distribution of the British and 

 allied subspecies recently differentiated, and the plates of immature and 

 winter plumages should also be helpful. For beginners, too, the illus- 

 trations of the method of measuring the various parts of the birds, the 

 scale of millimetres and inches, and the glossary of terms will be of 

 great assistance. We shall look forward with interest to the future 

 numbers of this handbook. 



