262 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



SCLEROTINIA BACCARUM (SCHRUT.) ReHM IN STIRLINGSHIRE. 



By D. A. Boyd. Journ. Bot.^ 1908, pp. 299-300. — The mature 

 ascophores found, in May, for the first time in Britain. 



List of Wild and Naturalised Flowers found in St. 

 Mary's Isle, Kirkcudbright. {Tr. and Froc. Duinf. afid Gail. 

 N'. H. Soc. xviii. 1907-8, pp. 46-47). 



BOOK NOTICES. 



Birds of Britain. By J. Lewis Bonhote, M.A., etc., etc. 

 With 100 illustrations in colour, selected by H. E. Dresser from 

 his " Birds of Europe." London, Adam and Charles Black. 

 2 IS. net. 



This handsome volume forms one of Messrs. Black's "Beautiful 

 Books," and both pictorially and in its general get up is worthy 

 of a high place among the series. These books, it should be 

 remarked, are intended for the general reader. We make special 

 reference to this because the author of the volume under notice 

 does not appear to have realised this fact, and this has led him to 

 include in its pages every unit in the vast army of feathered waifs 

 and strays that has been known to visit our shores : birds that are 

 not likely to come under the notice of, and have little or no interest 

 for, the ordinary lover of nature. By so doing Mr. Bonhote has 

 deprived himself of much valuable space which might with advan- 

 tage have been devoted to affording fuller information on habits, 

 distribution, and descriptions of plumage of our numerous native 

 birds, and of the many migrants which annually visit our shores. 

 Thus the letterpress is disappointing. It affords the ornithologist 

 nothing that he does not know, and it unfortunately brings the 

 work into competition with other books which are its superior ; 

 while it leaves a reliable book on strictly popular lines still a 

 desideratu7n. Apart from these shortcomings, which are after all 

 matters of opinion, the book has much to commend it, and the 

 excellent reproductions of Mr. Dresser's beautiful plates are both 

 useful and attractive. 



Three Voyages of a Naturalist : being an Account of 

 many little-known Islands in the three Oceans visited by 

 the "Valhalla," R.Y.S. By M. J. Nicoll, M.B.O.U. With an 

 Introduction by the Right Hon. the Earl of Crawford, K.T., F.R.S. 

 With 56 plates, 4 sketch maps, and text illustrations. Witherby 

 & Co., London. Price 7s. 6d. net. 



It has been Mr. Nicoll's great good fortune to accompany, as 

 naturalist, the Earl of Crawford, during three voyages in His 

 Lordship's yacht " Valhalla," one of the finest ocean-going yachts 



