I I 8 Reviews. | ^ 



Emu 

 St Oct. 



Reviews. 



NESTS AND EGGS OF BIRDS. 



[Australian Museum, Sydney. Special Catalogue Mo. i. " Nests and Eggs of 

 Birds Found Breeding in Australia and Tasmania," by Alfred J. North, C.M.Z.S., 

 &c.] 



After a delay of 1 1 months this handsome work has reached 

 its second part, containing pp. 37-120, plates B ii.-iv. This deals 

 with the various Bower-Birds, Orioles, Fig-Birds, Drongo-Shrike, 

 Magpie Lark, Shrike-Thrushes, Cuckoo-Shrikes, and Caterpillar- 

 eaters, and forms a most interesting and valuable study in the 

 life-history of the birds named. The general get-up is equally 

 deserving of commendation with Part I., which has already been 

 reviewed in TJie Emu (vol. i., p. 28-30). The half-tone photo- 

 blocks of nests and bowers are really beautiful, while Mr. 

 Neville Cayley's black and white drawings and natural poses of 

 birds are admirable. 



Perusal of the part under review makes more emphatic the pre- 

 viously expressed opinion that the author does himself an injustice 

 by his title. Descriptions of nests and eggs form but a moiety of 

 his work, which is really a praiseworthy endeavour to chronicle 

 a full description of each species, where it is found, and how it 

 lives. It is hence more valuable than a work dealing merely 

 with nidification, and Mr. North virtually admits that his aim is 

 wider than his title expresses by delineating (and rightly so) 

 two species which have not yet been " found breeding," and the 

 " nests and eggs " of which remain to be discovered — namely, 

 the Golden (Newton) Bower-Bird and the Tooth-billed Bower- 

 Bird. 



It seems a thousand pities that such a splendid work should 

 have any blemish — more still when it is realized that those most 

 readily perceptible are caused by an oft-repeated fault of the 

 author, for which it is hard to find any justification. Indeed, 

 there is evidence in the present number that Mr. North 

 recognizes that acknowledgment should be made of what has been 

 recorded by prior or contemporary workers in the same field. 

 In an innocent footnote on page 80 \_ZeitscJir. f. ges. Orn., i., p. 

 92, pi. xvii., fig. I (1884), and op. cit., p. 283, pi. xviii., figs. 2-4 

 (1884)] he draws attention to a work in a foreign language not 

 available to the majority of Australian ornithologists, who have 

 hence inadvertently overlooked the descriptions, &c., of one of 

 the Orioles therein contained. Yet he himself has omitted an 

 important reference on the subject of Bower-Birds in his 

 own language, to wit the Proceedings of ike Royal Physical 

 Society of Edinburgh, vol. xiv., pp. 13-46 (1898), with eight 

 photo, illustrations, four being similar subjects to those in his 

 own book. Seeking a reason for this omission lands the reader 

 in a dilemma as to whether the author has been negligent in 

 failinsf to consult authorities, or has desired to avoid reference to 



