^ook ji^etus! antr C^ebielus; 



Trees, Stars, and Birds. A Book of Out- 

 door Science. By Edwin Lincoln 

 MosELEY, A. M. World Book Company. 

 Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y., 1Q19. 8vo. 

 396 pp., 244 text-figures; in the back 16 

 colored plates of 58 species of birds. 



We expect that this little volume will fill 

 a distinct need as a text-book of nature 

 study in the schools, for which it has 

 evidently been planned with care. Trees, 

 Stars, and Birds are perhaps the three 

 classes of natural objects about us most 

 consistently through life, and some knowl- 

 edge of them cannot fail to broaden the 

 viewpoint and be a source of constant 

 pleasure. The last third of the book, 

 devoted to birds, we will speak of more in 

 detail. 



The treatment begins with the higher 

 kinds of birds — Bluebird, Robin, etc., and 

 ends with the lower, as the water-birds, 

 of which there is scant mention, thus 

 reversing the conventional order. This 

 is probably wise, as it brings the more 

 familiar species to the attention first. It 

 is to be regretted that nothing at all is 

 said of some important lower orders; 

 for instance, the diving birds: the Loon, a 

 representative of that group is familiar to 

 so large a proportion of outdoor people. 

 The structure of birds, their place in 

 nature, value to man, methods of attract- 

 ing and encouraging them, the more not- 

 able of their habits — as migration — are skil- 

 fully introduced and clearly described. 

 The subject matter is throughout well 

 chosen and authoritative, in keeping with 

 the colored plates by Louis Agassiz 

 Fuertes, mostly from a publication of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture. 

 The text-figures have much merit; a 

 number of these arc excellent [photographs 

 of specimens in the American Museum of 

 Natural History, and many photographs of 

 living birds in the West by Finley and 

 Hohlman are especially attractive and 

 interesting. As the text has to do with 

 eastern species, these do not always 

 correlate with it, but they will very likely 



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make the book more useful in the West 

 than it otherwise would be. 



We have very nicely illustrated here how 

 the current system of bird-names breeds 

 confusion; turn to the paragraph on 

 Shrikes. There are only two species of 

 Shrikes in the country — the Northern 

 Shrike and the Loggerhead Shrike. The 

 Loggerhead Shrike is divided into several 

 geographic races, and this, aside from the 

 fact that they are such, which is not 

 mentioned, can certainly have no inter- 

 est for the students for whom the work is 

 intended; yet we find the names. Northern 

 Shrike, Migrant Shrike, [a race of the 

 Loggerhead], and Loggerhead Shrike all 

 with the same emphasis, illustrated with a 

 photograph of the California Shrike [also 

 a race of the Loggerhead]. Practically the 

 photograph of the California Shrike is a 

 good illustration of the Loggerhead Shrike, 

 but the reader has no more means of know- 

 ing this than that the illustration of Black 

 Phoebes on an ensuing page is of an entirely 

 different bird from the Phcebe mentioned 

 in the accompanying text. — J. T. N. 



A Monograph of the Pheasants. By 

 William Beebe. In four volumes, Vol- 

 ume I. Witherby & Co., London, igiS. 

 R. 4 to. 198 pp.; 19 full-page colored 

 plates of Pheasants and 15 photograv- 

 ure plates of their environment, etc.; 

 5 distributional maps. 



For several years the bird-students and 

 bird-lovers of the world have known that 

 this monograph was in preparation and 

 have awaited its appearance with keen 

 anticipation. They cannot be disappointed 

 in Volume I, which takes up the pheasant- 

 like Blood Partridges and Tragopans, the 

 Impcyan Pheasants and Eared Pheasants, 

 seventeen species in all, of wiiich several 

 vary into geographic races. 



This volume also contains an intro- 

 ductory discussion of the group in general, 

 the habits of Pheasants, their place in 

 nature and relation to man. Here we find 

 generalizations and suggestions of very 



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