278 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. tx. 



semi-domesticated birds, and we think that further evidence 

 is desirable in the case of asserted breeding in Merioneth. 



F.r.R.J. 



British Birds. Written and illustrated by A. Thorburn, 

 F.Z.S. With eighty plates in colour. 13 x lOi inches. 

 4 Vols. £6 6s. net. (Longmans.) Vol. II. 1915. 



We have already described the general plan of Mr. Thorburn's 

 beaiitiful book in our notice of the first volume (aiitcn, p. 31). 

 The book can certainly be connnended to those who require 

 a drawing-room or librar}' book with beautifully drawn and 

 well reproduced coloiu-ed illustrations of British birds at a 

 moderate price. Many will no doubt object to the plan of 

 grouphig a nmnber of species on a single plate, but it must 

 be said that this plan has enabled the publishers to ]noduce 

 the book at a comparatively low cost, considering the 

 excellent quality of the work. In this second volume the 

 awkwardness of the grou])iiig is not so marked, as the birds 

 are for the most part laiger, while the pictures of the Crolden 

 Eagle and Eagle-Owl, each occupying a single plate, are a 

 great relief to the eye. Mr. Thorburn's drawings possess 

 a beautiful finish and have a clean, bold effect, but his birds 

 are perhaps rather too consistently brilliant and " spick and 

 span." In this vohime. for example, the female Red-footed 

 Falcon is abnormally i-ed, while the Egyptian Vulture is 

 cleaner than any we have ever seen, and the back of the 

 BulY-b;u;ked Heron is too bright. The iris of the young (Jannet 

 should not have been yellow ; the Sky-Lark is an unusually 

 red example, the crest-feathers of the Crested-Lark are not 

 well depicted, and the characteristic dark patches on the 

 sides of the breast of the Short-toed Lark are not well defined. 

 Such details, however, are but small ])lemishes in a beautiful 

 series of drawings. H.l'WW 



