REVIEWS. 235 



Robin, Red-winged Starling, Mocking Bird, Mottled Owl, the 

 Egyptian and Canada Geese, and such doubtful forms as 

 the Polish Swan and Pallas's Grey Shrike. Thirteen other 

 species, viz. : White's Thrush, Yellow-Browed and Savi's 

 Warblers, Crested Tit, Ortolan Bunting, Crested Lark, Great 

 Black Woodpecker, Golden Eagle, Iceland Falcon, Great 

 White Heron, Red Grouse, Roseate Tern, and Bonaparte's 

 Gull are included on apparently very slender evidence indeed. 

 On the other hand the Water- Pipit, White-winged Black Tern, 

 and Sabine's Gull, which have undoubtedly occurred in the 

 county, are omitted, and there is no reference at all to the 

 Willow-Tit. 



The coloured plates, representing eight species of special 

 interest to Kent ornithologists, though fairly good, are of 

 unequal merit, that of the Masked Shrike, perhaps, being the 

 best. Illustrations of the typical haunts of some of the 

 more local species would have certainly added interest to the 

 book, and in our opinion should always find a place in a county 

 fauna. The map of the county is ridiculously small, and as 

 a guide to the position of the places mentioned in the text 

 almost wholly useless. 



Altogether this book cannot be considered an adequate 

 history of the Kent avifauna, and it seems a pity that, having 

 accumulated such a mass of material, the authors should 

 not have gone further and spent a little more time and trouble 

 in making that material complete. Thorough and up-to-date 

 information should be the characteristic of ornithological 

 as of all scientific works, and those that do not reach the 

 requisite standard of efficiency are better left unpublished. 



N.F.T. 



A Bird Collector's Medleij. By E. C. Arnold, M.A. Illus- 

 trated. West, Newman. 10s. 



Mr. Arnold is well-known as a diligent searcher after rare 

 wanderers on our east coast, and he has shot and recorded 

 from time to time a number of birds which have strayed 

 from their normal course during the migration season. All 

 this is useful, and no harm can be done to our indigenous 

 avifauna by shooting such birds, while some benefit accrues 

 to science by the exact recording of their wanderings. 

 Some of the remarks in the chapter on " Protection " are 

 sensible, but the author is not always sincere since, although 

 he asserts that to him the Dartford Warbler is sacred, yet he 

 relates very fully how he succeeded in shooting one of these 

 birds, as well as two Bearded Tits, a much rarer English 

 breeding bird. Mr. Arnold had no justification whatever 



