Rcvieivs.



309



All our members should add to their libraries this very

valuable addition to our knowledge of these birds ; after reading

the book all will become ardent devotees of this fastinating

group, which only needs really knowing in order to be appre¬

ciated. —


BRITISH BIRDS.*


The chief interest of this periodical is, as usual, a large

number of short notes recording the presence of rare species

within our islands.


Articles deal with the Crossbills as a British Bird, Positions

assumed in Flight, and the Migration of the White Stork, this

last being an account of the results of the ringing at Rossiten

referred to in our pages last Sept., Ser. 3, Vol. I., p. 336. The

longest and most important article is one by Messrs. N. F.Ticeliurst

and Jourdain on the “Distribution of the Nightingale in Great

Britain.” These writers have gone into the matter at great length

and have accumulated notes from observers in the different coun¬

ties ; as a result they show that the distribution of this species is in

the main defined by land over 1,oooft., which apparently it cannot

cross. That its distribution agrees roughly with the low lying

portion of England is an undoubted fact, though even on this

basis there seems no reason why it should not occur on the

Eastern border of Northumberland, the North coast of Devon or

Pembrokeshire, all of which lie in its line of migration with no

intervening high land, from these and other more complex

reasons we are inclined to doubt whether the conclusions drawn

are justified by the facts. If their conclusions were right, its

distribution in Europe should also agree roughly with the height

of the land although the actual limit of height might be different

in the various latitudes, and a few notes on this matter would

have made their theory more convincing.


In the writer’s opinion the distribution of this bird at

present is merely defined by its numbers. If the country can for

example support two pairs to an acre and 250 pairs arrive they

will occupy 125 acres in an area represented roughly by a

segment of a circle with their point of entry as centre. In some



British Birds, April, May, June, 1911. London : H. F. Withurby & Co.

Monthly, price 1/- net.



