14 Book Notices ayid Reviews. 



Booh Notices and Reviews. 



JUNGLE I'EACE, By C. W. Beebe. 300 p.p. and 16 photo 

 reproduction illustrations New York, Henry Holt and Co. 



Mr. Beebe's books need no commendation to our 

 readers, but in this, his latest book, he has surpassed himself 

 in i^raphic description — the reader visualises the scenes he 

 describes. The book is not confined to birds, but deals with 

 the whole fauna met with in the Bartica District, British Guiana, 

 and Para at the mouth of the Amazon. But we will quote 

 extracts from Chapter vi., " Hoatzins at Home," and leave the 

 book to speak for itself: 



" Hoatzins at Home. The flight of the hor.tzin resembles that of 

 " an overfed hen. The hoatzin's voice is no more melodious than the cry 

 " of a peacock and less sonorous than an alligator's roar. The bird's 

 " grace is batrachian rather than avian, while the odoin- of its bodv 

 " resembles that of no l)ird untouched by dissolution. Still, zoologically 

 " considered, the hoatzin is probably the most remarkable and interesting 

 " bird living on the earth to-day. 



" It has successfully defied time and space. For it, the dial of the 

 " ages has moved more slowly than for the rest of organic life, and though 

 " living and breathing witli us tf)-day, yet its world is an affair of two 

 " dimensions — a line of thorny sai)lings threaded along the banks of a few 

 " tropical waters. 



" A bird in a cage cannot escape, and may be found month after 

 month wherever the cage is ])laced. A stuffed ))ird in a case may resist 

 disintegration for a century. But when we go to look for the bluebirds 

 in the orchard, they may have flown a Iwlf-mile away in their search for 

 food. The jilover which scurries before us to-da_\' on the beacli m.'iy 

 to-night lie far away <in the first laj) of hi.- seven thous,'ind-mile flight to 

 the southw.-ird. 



" The hoatzin's status lies i"ither with the caged bird. In November 

 in New York City >an Englishman said to me ' Go to the Berbice River, 

 and at the north end of the town of New Amsterdam, in front of Mr. 

 I'.eckett's hous(.-, \(iu will find hoatzins.' Six months later I drove along 

 a tropical river road and saw three hoatzins perched on a low thorn 1)ush 

 at the i-iver's edge in front of ;i house. And the river was th» Berb'ce. 

 and the house that of Mr. l'.eckitt's. 



" Thus are the hoatzins inde])en(lent of space, as all other birds know 

 it, and in their classic reptili.m alilnities — voice, action, arms, fingers, 



