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Hill Bmh of Scotland. By Seton Gordon, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U., 

 pp. X1I.-300. With 25 plates from Photographs. (Edward 

 Arnold.) 12s. 6d. net. 



Mr. Gordon does not belong to the school of arm-chair 

 ornithologists, who from the seclusion of the suburbs add to 

 the long list of books on British birds. He has a good 

 working knowledge of the Scottish Jlighlands east of the 

 Great Glen, and moreover has not been content to pay brief 

 visits during the spring or autumn months, but has explored 

 the glens and corries of the Spey and Dee basins even in the 

 depth of winter. 



In the work now before us Mr. Gordon treats of twenty-four 

 species which breed in this district, and so far as he writes 

 from personal observation, his words carry considerable 

 weight. We are glad to note also signs of a great advance 

 on earlier works on the same subject. This can readily 

 be seen by anyone who will take the trouble to compare 

 the article on the Goosander in the same writer's Birds of the 

 Loch and Momitaiii (1907) and that in the present work, 

 for while the earlier paper contains several serious misstate- 

 ments and errors, the later accomit is thoroughly reliable 

 and trustworthy". Especially valuable are the field-notes on 

 the habits of the various birds made from personal observa- 

 tion, such as the length of the fledging-period in some of the 

 rarer species, and the vertical range in summer and winter 

 of the mountain haunting birds. In dealing -with those 

 species whose breeding area in Great Britain extends con- 

 siderably beyond the Scottish Highlands, such as the Kestrel, 

 Woodcock and Common Sandpiper, it must be rememberetl 

 that the author's remarks apply primarily to the district 

 referred to above and are not necessarily true of the \\hole 

 breeding-range. 



The book, however, contains a good deal of second-hand in- 

 formation from various sources, frequently quoted without any 

 clue as to its origin, A\hich has by no means the same value as 

 the author's own field-notes. In man}- cases this is merely pre- 

 faced by the words, " A story is related," or " It is said," 

 while the statements thus introduced are occasionally a severe 

 test to the credulity of the reader. The story of American 

 origin which credits the Ospreys of a certain (unnamed) 



