Reviews.



307



to keep under proper treatment, Mr. North gives some interesting

particulars from which we quote the following:—“When living

at Dobroyde, Ashfield, in 1889, large flocks used to fly over from

February to the middle of April, fairly high in the air, resem¬

bling in form a wave or the spray left on a long beach by a

receding wave. These flocks were about three hundred yards in

width, and three or four birds deep, and were travelling from the

south-west to the north-east, and were probably a quarter-of-a-

mile apart. They could be seen at almost any time of the day,

from early morning until nearly sunset. Numbers of these birds

were allured and caught by means of a captive call-bird in a cage

and a snare pole. The trap consists of a long pole about twenty

feet long, which is placed in a socket, and has at the top one or

two thin forked limbs, which fairly bristle with liorse-hair nooses.

A pulley is usually attached, so that the cage containing the call


or decoy bird can be lowered as required.It seems strange


that these birds, when once they alight on one of these poles,

repeatedly come back until they are eventually entangled in one

of the many horse-hair nooses with which the forked extremity

of the snare-pole is covered. These poles may be seen as one

passes through from Paramatta to Petersham, even from the

window of a railway carriage, and are usually erected in yards

and gardens, and attended to by school children or the average

boy. The number caught in a day varies; I met one boy who

informed me that he had caught one hundred and twenty.’’


We can very strongly recommend Mr. North’s book to all

who are interested in Australian birds. One of its best features

consists in the numerous field-notes from reliable sources.


-- D. S-S.


MY FOREIGN DOVES AND PIGEONS. *


The appearance of a book entirely devoted to the culture

of foreign Doves and Pigeons is most welcome, and will no doubt

do much to popularize these most interesting and beautiful birds.


It is strange we have had to wait so long for a book on the

Pigeons, they have been neglected for a long period, until quite

recent years; although several fine monographs were published



* My Foreign Doves ami Pigeons, by Miss Kosik Alderson, Canary and Cage-Bird

Life, 9 , Arundel Street, Strand, London, W.C. 3 s. 6 d. nett.



