214 Recently Published Ornithological Works. 



is enough to make the whole caravan take to flight and 

 remove to some distance. But the Indians of San Carlos 

 know better than to scare them away with firearms. They 

 get into their canoes a little after raid night, creep silently up 

 the liver, and under cover of the night disembark beneath 

 the trees where the Ibises are roosting. Then, when at 

 break of day the birds wake up and begin to stir, and to be 

 visible, the Indians pick them off with poisoned darts from 

 their blowing-canes in great numbers, before the bulk of the 

 flock takes alarm ; so that they mostly return to the villages 

 with great piles of dead Ibi>cs ; and, although this lasts only 

 two or three days, the quantity killed is so great that, what 

 with fresh and what with barbecued game, everybody feasts 

 royally for a fortnight; whereas throughout the rest of the 

 year the dearth of provisions exceeds what I have experi- 

 enced elsewhere in South America." 



28. Whymper's ' Egyptian Birds.' 



[Egyptian Birds, for tho most Tart situ in the Nile Valley. By 

 Charles Whymper. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1909. lvol. 



8vo.] 



Our associate Mr. Charles Whymper has produced a very 

 nice book, which will, no doubt, be in the hands of many of 

 the visitors who go up the Nile this winter. Selecting fifty 

 of the birds most commonly met with on the banks of the 

 great river, he gives us artistic drawings of them and accom- 

 panies them with well-written popular accounts of their 

 habits and manners. As stated by the author in his 

 " Foreword/' this does not claim to be a scientific work, 

 " it is meant for the wayfaring man who, travelling through 

 this ancient land, wishes to learn something of the birds he 

 meets with/' Mr. Whymper, therefore, does not interfere 

 with the labouis of several of our correspondents, who are 

 striving to attain a lull knowledge of the Egyptian Avifauna 

 in order to produce a complete account of it. 



As will be noticed by those who inspect the volume, most 

 of the fifty species of which figures are given are well known 



