CURRENT LITERATURE 201 



CURRENT LITERATURE. 



Glossy Ibis in Islay. Two Glossy Ibises were seen on the 

 Gruinart Flatts on 6th September. One of these allowed Mr W. 

 H. Erskine and Mr Hugh Morrison, M.P., to approach within 

 fifteen yards. We are glad to hear that the birds were not molested. 

 The Field, 15th September 1920. 



BOOK NOTICES. 



The Influence of Man on Animal Life in Scotland : A Study 

 IN Faunae Evolution. By James Ritchie, M.A., D.Sc, 

 Royal Scottish Museum. Pp. xvi. + 550, many figs, and maps. 

 Cambridge: at the University Press, 1920. Price 28s. net. 



Although the influence of man on animal life has been paramount 

 from the earliest times and has worked very remarkable changes, for 

 weal or for woe, on the native faunas of all regions, yet this important 

 factor has not received the recognition it deserves from those who have 

 essayed to treat upon "Ca.^ ferce natures of our own or other countries. 



In the British Isles in particular, owing to the density of their 

 population and the intense activities of their inhabitants, vast and 

 never ceasing changes have been wrought since the advent of man to 

 the present time, but these have not as yet been adequately treated of 

 by natural historians. 



Dr Ritchie has supplied this desideratum, so far as Scotland is con- 

 cerned, in a masterly manner, thanks to his prodigious researches into 

 all classes of literature likely to bear upon the subject, which coupled 

 with his high scientific training and his philosophic turn of mind, 

 have resulted in a book which is thoroughly comprehensive in all 

 respects and will always rank as a classic on the subject. 



Though the author's investigations have been confined in the main 

 to the Scottish aspect of the subject, yet his historical matter and 

 deductions apply in a greater or lesser degree to the rest of the British 

 area, and in a general sense to all countries both civilised and savage. 

 His reasons for making Scotland the subject for his investigations, apart 

 from pardonable patriotic considerations, were those of necessity, for it 

 was essential that the faunal area should be possessed of varied physical 

 features, and be at the same time of reasonable compass, in order that it 

 might be possible to amass and thoroughly digest the data bound to 

 be voluminous from which alone reliable deductions could be drawn. 



It is impossible here even to allude to the wide ranging influences 

 due to man's deliberate and indirect interferences with animal life which 

 have been at work for some seven thousand years in northern Britain. 

 107 AND 108 Z 



