400 SOME NE W BOOKS [may 



claims to be regarded as the " friend " of the fisherman (of to-day) as he who 

 has such trust in the "Resources of the Sea" that he would remove all restric- 

 tions upon fishing? Was it not Prof. M'Intosh who suggested a few years ago 

 to the Select Committee that the North Sea should be divided into four portions, 

 one of which should be closed each year against fishing 1 What is the Moray 

 Firth compared with a fourth of the North Sea ! 



The book is admirably got up. The printing and the illustrations (views of 

 St. Andrews and of fishing life) are excellent, and we have noticed wonderfully 

 few misprints or mistakes: — "Machig" bay (p. 211) we take to be Mauchrie ; 

 and we believe Davaar to be the more correct spelling of the island off 

 Campbeltown ; " the late Mr. Spencer Walpole," referred to several times in 

 these terms, is, we are glad to say, still with us as Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B. 



Scottish zoologists have long regarded Professor M'Intosh as their leader, 

 and as a pioneer in the application of science to the fisheries. This fresh work 

 from his ever active hand and head will be received with gratitude and admiration 

 even by those who cannot entirely agree with all its conclusions. L. 



ANOTHER BOOK ON BIRDS. 



Birds : The Cambridge Natural History, vol. ix. By A. H. Evans, M.A., 

 Clare College, Cambridge. 8vo, pp. xvi. + 635, with 144 figs. London : 

 Macmillan and Company, 1899. Price 17s. net. 



To write a book on birds is, one would imagine, the easiest of tasks, to 

 judge at least from the steady and constant stream that pours forth year by 

 year from the various publishing houses of this country. Nevertheless, though 

 many are published but few are chosen. The latest claimant to our attention 

 is one of the "Cambridge Natural History" series, and is, in some respects, a 

 useful book. In the preface Mr. Evans tells us that " he has essayed the 

 difficult and apparently unattempted task of including within some six hundred 

 pages a short description of the majority of the forms in many of the Families, 

 and of the most typical or important of the innumerable species included in the 

 large Passerine Order." This is one of many statements to which we shall have 

 to refer, as showing a lack of appreciation of the work of contemporary writers. 

 In the " Royal Natural History," published some three or four years ago, there 

 appeared a volume on birds in every way equal to the present work, and, in 

 many respects, better. 



The general plan of this work resembles that of Flower and Lydekker's 

 " Mammals : Living and Extinct." It is divided into seven chapters, the first 

 being introductory, and the rest devoted to the general descriptive matter. 

 The frame-work upon which it is built is a good one, the classification adopted 

 being that of Dr. Gadow. For the facts with which it is crammed the author 

 is largely indebted to the " Dictionary of Birds," and Dr. Gadow's second volume 

 on the Classification of Birds in Bronn's Thierreich. 



In the general scheme of the systematic portion of the book it was apparently 

 intended to prefix to each group a brief survey of the salient features of the 

 external characters ; those eventually selected are such as the number of toes, 

 form of the beak, the presence or absence of an aftershaft, and so forth, added 

 to which there frequently occurs the somewhat inconsequent statement that 

 "the syrinx is tracheo-bronchial, and the furcula U-shaped," or otherwise, as 

 the case may be, two isolated anatomical facts which seem singularly in- 

 appropriate and out of place here ; moreover, they are often in addition, as 

 statements of facts, incorrect. 



In passing in review the account of the different groups, we notice many 

 errors and many omissions. In the penguins, for instance, the tongue is said 

 to be rudimentary (? vestigial). A moment's reference to the plates in Watson's 

 magnificent monograph, published in the "Challenger" Reports, would have 



