206 Reviezvs. [JT^rM 



relation to agriculture, fruit-growing, forestry, &c. He treats 

 of nearly 300 species. To cover such a large field in so small a 

 compass some of his remarks are necessarily scant, if not 

 scrappy, while some of his notes are somewhat beside the 

 question — such as^ for instance, albino or " sport " varieties, traits 

 of birds in semi-domestication, &c. What the reader wants is 

 information about the habits of typical birds of the bush. But, 

 nevertheless, Mr. Hall has managed to bring out important 

 points which must prove instructive to his readers, and the more 

 his readers are country dwellers the more practical will the 

 instruction become. The book is within easy reach of all, and 

 can be purchased for the modest sum of 3s. 6d. The work is 

 neatly bound with an attractive cover— plate of Blue Wrens — 

 and that it is printed by Messrs. Walker, May and Co. is a 

 guarantee that the printing is first-class. 



[" The Bird : its Form and Function." By C. W. Beelje, Curator of Ornithology 

 of New York Zoological Park. ] 



Under this attractive title a book has appeared of the 

 American Nature Series, published by Henry Holt and 

 Company, New York, September, 1906, which will give nature- 

 lovers generally, and ornithologists especially, an insight into 

 the structure and meaning of bird life which it was difficult to 

 obtain before. In the preface the author aptly states his case in 

 this manner :— " When a new bird is shot it is labelled, preserved 

 in a collection, and often forgotten ; or if studied with a field- 

 glass, all effort is centred in finding some characteristic by 

 which it can be named. Observing the habits, the courtship, 

 the nest-building is a third phase of bird study, but few indeed 

 have ever given a moment's thought to the bird itself." The 

 book is an untechnical study of the bird in the abstract, and is 

 illustrated profusely throughout with excellent photographs, 

 mostly from life. 



The frontispiece is a coloured drawing of a prehistoric 

 bird form — Hesperornis — a wingless, toothed, diving creature, 

 about 5 feet long, which lived in the great cretaceous seas some 

 four millions of years ago. After treating of the ancestry of the 

 bird the chapters deal in order with the feathers, framework, 

 organs, food, breath, muscles, senses, beak, head, body, wings, 

 feet, tail, and eggs of the bird in such a comprehensive yet 

 simple manner that any reader cannot fail to be impressed with 

 that beauty and adaptability in bird life for which the author 

 endeavours to bespeak continuous admiration. 



The book not only contains precise facts, but points out the 

 why and wherefore of most structures, and the bird-lover is 

 immediately enabled to see the full force of some observations 

 that before may have been isolated and solitary. When the 



