206 BRITISH BIRDS. 



of nests on the bare ground to piles of sticks and other materials 

 generations old, not only on the ground but on rocks and in 

 trees, as well as on such incongruous situations as house- 

 roofs, V, ooden fences and telegraph-poles. The diversity of 

 nesting-sites appear to be only equalled by the heterogeneous 

 nature of the nest material, often consisting mostly of sticks, 

 but no sort of flotsam or jetsam seems to come amiss, while 

 the bird is constantly making additions during the whole time 

 nesting is in progress. Besides his general and particular 

 description of nests and nesting-sites, the author gives a 

 great deal of information on the laying of the eggs, incubation, 

 rearing, feeding and sheltering of the young, the whole inter- 

 spersed with personal experiences which add not a little to 

 the attractiveness of the descriptions. Special attention 

 may be drawn to the markedly protective pattern and colour- 

 ing of the young shown in Plate 6, the attitudes of aggressive- 

 ness and concealment shown in the following ones, and the 

 manner in which the young suffer from the heat shown in 

 Plate 27, an experience that appears to be common to a good 

 many species that build unprotected nests. We must not 

 omit mention of the nest shown on Plate 3a, which, although 

 built on a sea-girt rock, is of special interest to British ornitho- 

 logists since, as the author truly remarks, it is so strongly 

 reminiscent of the nests described by St. John in our own 

 Highland lochs, and the sites, now long abandoned, figured 

 in the Scotch Fauna series. 



The most attractive plates to most people will doubtless 

 be the really wonderful series depicting the old birds in 

 various positions of flight. For sharpness of detail they are 

 certainly amongst the best photographs of flying birds that 

 have ever been produced. No doubt the conditions of light 

 and atmosphere are almost ideal in such a situation as 

 Gardiner's Island for procuring photographs of this character, 

 and the Osprey would not appear to be one of the most difficult 

 of subjects. Such pictures as these, nevertheless, reflect the 

 highest praise on the author's methods and patience, as well 

 as his abilitv and skill as a naturalist and photographer. 



N.F.T. 



The Life of the Common Gull. Told in Photographs by C. 



Rubow. (Translated from the Danish). Pp. 6 and 25 



Plates. Witherby & Co. Is. 6d. net 

 In the above small brochure the author gives us a short 

 sketch of the life-history of the Common Gull {Larus canus). 

 The story is pleasantly told in a popular manner, and hardly 

 calls for comment, though, perhaps, the incident related 



