191 3 Reviews.. 55 
of a picture. It would be impossible to overpraise Mr. Seaby's fine re- 
presentation of a Curlew chasing a Raven from its breeding ground.; 
and the same may be said of the plates showing the Common Buzzard 
(also by Mr. Seaby), the Golden Eagle, Hen Harrier, and G eenland 
Falcon, by Mr. G. E. Lodge, and "two Rulfs displaying^to a leeve " 
by Mr. H. Gronoold. 
In the chapter on the Grouse sub-family, Mr. h-urdain, by an obvious 
slip, states that the Capercaillie was exterminated in Scotland a d Ireland 
" during the second half of the nineteenth centur}' " — meaning, of course, 
the eighteenth. 
C. B. M. 
THE WEST BRITISH FAUNA. 
Wild Life in the West Highlands. By Charles Henry Alston, 
with Illustrations by A. Scott Rankin. Glasgow : James Maclehose 
and Sons, 5s. net. 
The subjects of which Mr. Alston treats are rather miscellaneous, but 
most of his chapters deal more or less with some phases of the natural 
history of the Western Highlands — an area with which, for reasons of 
proximity, Irish naturalists ma}' well feel a special interest. Mr. Alston's 
chapters, however, do not supply much original information. A good many 
of them deal with rare and vanishing or even vanished British animals, 
as the Wolf, Beaver, Wild Cat, and Sea-Eagle, of which the author makes 
no claim to speak from first-hand knowledge. He has summarised with 
tolerable accuracy a good deal of the information furnished by previous 
writers regarding these species. His chapter on the Wild Cat might 
have been improved — since reference is made in it to that animal's absence 
from Ireland — had he been aware when writing it of Dr. Scharff's compara- 
tively recent discoveries regarding a supposed old Irish W^ild Cat, allied 
to the present African form. A few other references to Ireland occur in 
the course of Mr. Alston's book. His statement that the Water Shrew 
does not occur in this island might, we fear, be taken b}' some of his 
readers as implying that the Common Shrew does, which, of course, is 
not the case. There are some pleasing photographs and a good coloured 
plate of the Wild Cat — though a somewhat inferior representation of the 
Otter has been chosen for frontispiece to the yolume. Bats, reptiles, 
and amphibia are ignored by Mr. Alston, but his interest in the Salmonidae 
has inspired three chapters which a good many of his readers will probably 
deem the best in his book. 
C, B. M. 
