156 The Irish Naturalist April, 



REVIEW. 



OUR NATIVE WATER BIRDS. 



The Aquatic Birds of Great Britain and Ireland. By Professor 

 C. J. Patten, M.A., M.D., vSc.D. Pp. 620, with 56 plates and 68 text 

 illustrations. Demy 8vo. 25s. net. London : R. H. Porter, 1906. 



It has been our unpleasant duty on several recent occasions to criticise 

 adversely certain books on British birds, firstly, because there did not 

 seem to be any particular reason why they should have been written at 

 all ; secondly, because the Irish information, if not completely mislead- 

 ing, was vague to an irritating degree. The writers or compilers had 

 apparently never heard of Ussher and Warren's standard work, and were 

 also not aware of the existence of this Journal. It is, therefore, with no 

 ordinary feelings of pleasure that we say at once how very different is 

 the splendid volume by which Professor Patten has enriched the litera- 

 ture of the British avifauna in general and of the Irish avifauna in par- 

 ticular. Not only is there every reason why this book should have been 

 written, but it would have been a positive calamity to ornithology had it 

 never appeared. There are so many features of the book we have been 

 pleased with that we hardly know which to mention first, but perhaps 

 the keynote to the charm of the whole volume will be found in the 

 freshness and breeziness that pervades every page. There is no sugges- 

 tion of the " midnight oil" or of scissors and paste; on the contrary, we 

 feel the sea-breezes fanning our cheeks, or the water oozing over our 

 boot-tops as we accompany Dr. Patten over slob-land and mud flat, or 

 by inarsh and lake. Best of all, Dr. Patten not o\\\y has a nodding 

 acquaintance with nearly all the rarer birds he writes of, but he is on in- 

 timate terms with the remainder of the aquatic birds of this country, and 

 speaks from personal and first-hand knowledge. Herein lies, to us, the 

 great charm of the book, and the natural consequence of this intimacy 

 is that several facts in bird-life are noted for the first time. Dr. Patten 

 is a close and careful observer, and he has here given us the gist of field- 

 notes extending over a large number of years, and kept with painstaking 

 accuracy. And he is as skilful with skinning-knife and camera as he is 

 with pencil and field-glass, and the result is seen in numerous excellent 

 photographs of birds with the information, " From specimens collected 

 and mounted by the author." The illustrations of Turnstones on plate 

 xvii. are simply delightful, and nothing better could be desired. There 

 are many plates of equal excellence, but this one is particularly pleasing 

 and successful. 



Many practical hints on the best method of observing bird-life are 

 given in the introduction. For example, " I have often baffled birds by 

 doubling myself into such curious attitudes that they probably mistook 

 me for some inanimate object, such as an old hamper or apiece of sack, 

 ing washed ashore, and by this means I have found myself surrounded 



