• [ 65 ] 

 IRISH MAMMAI.S. 



BY G. ^. H. BARRHTT-HAMIIv'TON, B.A. 



If, as Mr. Lydekker truly remarks in the preface to his recent 

 work,' " no monograph of the British Mammals as a whole 

 has been published since the second edition of Bell's ' British 

 Quadrupeds' in 1874" and "since that date considerable 

 advances have been made with regard to our knowledge of 

 the geographical distribution of our native mammals," it was 

 surely all the more incumbent upon the Editor and Publishers 

 of the volume to procure the services of an author, vdio 

 was known to have paid some attention to the study of British 

 mammals. Mr. I^ydekker, on the contrar}^ starts with the 

 humiliating confession that he " makes no claim to being an 

 observer of the habits of British mammals," and he has, there- 

 fore, filled his pages with quotations drawn largely from the 

 writings of Macgillivray, as published in the original series of 

 the " Naturalists' Library.'' To these he has added notes con- 

 tributed by Mr. A. Trevor Battye and Mr. W. E. de Winton— 

 gentlemen whose names have been until quite recently un- 

 knov\m in connection with the study of our British Mammals — 

 while he has almost completely ignored the older workers, 

 with the exception of Mr. J. E- Harting. In his preface, the 

 author does, indeed, tender his acknowledgments to Mr. A- 

 G. More (whom he appears to think is still "of the Dublin 

 Museum ") " for much important information kindly com- 

 municated by letter on the subject of Irish mammals," but 

 there is little trace of Mr. More's influence in the body of the 

 work, and the general meagreness of the references to Ireland, 

 and the quotations from Thompson's " Natural History of 

 Ireland " with regard to the distribution of mammals whose 

 whole status might well have been completely changed since 

 the publication of that excellent work, leads us to the belief 

 that the author has taken but little pains to make himself 

 acquainted with the natural history of Ireland. 



It would take more than Mr. Lydekker' s pleasant style of 

 writing and the prett}^ binding of the book to hide the haste 



^ Allen's Naturalists' Library, edited by R. Bowdler Sharp, LI/.D., 

 F.Iv.S., etc. — A Handtsook to the British lYIammalia, by R. 



IvYDEKKER, B.A., F.R.vS., V.P.G.S., etc., Loudon; W. H. Allen & Co., 

 Limited, 13, Waterloo-place, S,W,, 1S95. Price 6s. 



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