i8 9 6. SOME NEW BOOKS. 49 



contrary, he has taken the trouble to condense into his text a great 

 many facts about the wild habits of birds, and, in so doing, he has 

 exercised a wise discretion. As a result, he has produced a volume 

 which is sure to find its place on the bookshelf of every traveller and 

 of most country gentlemen. 



Mr. Headley is one of the numerous people who are neither 

 naturalists nor anatomists by profession, but who have given a great 

 deal of time and pains to the special subject of birds. A long chapter 

 on flight is the most important part of his book. He gives a careful 

 account of the bones and muscles involved, and discusses the 

 mechanics of flight from the simple beginning of the systems of levers 

 involved to the obscurer questions of the resistance of the air to so 

 complicated a surface as the avian wing. He betrays, perhaps, too 

 great a tendency to lecture the world in general on its stupidity ; no 

 one with the most elementary knowledge of physics supposes that the 

 air-sacs and hollow bones of birds have a ballooning effect. As a 

 matter of fact, Kohlrausch in 1832 published a treatise at Goettingen 

 entitled " De Avium Saccorum Aeriorum Utilitate," and set the 

 matter at rest, at least for all anatomists. But we remember that 

 Gaetke, in his " Birds of Heligoland," betrayed a weakness for the 

 view Mr. Headley is so eager to contradict ; and Mr. Headley, 

 perhaps knowing the weaknesses of the field-ornithologist better 

 than the present reviewer, had reason to set him right. In addition 

 to his interesting chapter on flight, Mr. Headley has written a large 

 number of short elementary chapters on embryology, palaeontology, 

 physiology, and so forth. These are pertinently illustrated, and no 

 doubt will interest the amateurs for whom they are written. 



Not unlike Dr. Bowdler Sharpe's excellent series on British Birds 

 is a charming little book by Mabel Wright, brimful of information 

 about the birds of America. " The two hundred birds chosen for 

 description from . . . over nine hundred species of North American 

 Birds are selected as being those which will be the most likely to 

 interest bird-lovers." Of the four introductory chapters — The Spring 

 Song, The Building of the Nest, The Water Birds, Birds of Autumn 

 and Winter — it would be hard to speak too highly ; they are so 

 charmingly written. The rest of the book is admirably arranged from 

 the point of view of the non-technical reader. First, we have a few 

 remarks on " How to Name the Birds," then a " Synopsis of Bird 

 Families," then follow " Bird Biographies," and lastly a " Key to the 

 Birds." The biographies give in a concise form such details as length, 

 coloration of the sexes, song, nest and eggs, range, and so on ; this is 

 completed by remarks of a more general character. 



One of the most difficult tasks that confronts the field-ornithologist 

 is that of coining an intelligible description of the songs and call-notes 

 of the birds he encounters, and often, in a wild burst of despair at the 

 barrenness of his efforts, he leaves us the information that the note is 

 " metallic" or " silvery " ! The authoress is sometimes very happy in 

 her role of interpreter, but occasionally the task proves too much even 

 for her trained ear, and she falls back on the poets, and not always, as 

 we venture to think, with like success. For instance, we are told that 

 the song of the Hermit Thrush, is " flute-like ascending." It has 

 been set to words by Burroughs, and runs thus — 



•• O spheral, spheral ! O holy, holy ! O clear away, clear away ! O clear up, clear up ! " 



In speaking of the enemies of birds, we read that " man is . . . the 

 most relentless of all. The other enemies kill for food only, man 

 kills for food casually, for decorative feathers wantonly, and for 



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