346 NATURAL SCIENCE. Nov.. 



For we see Mr. Gatke at his very best upon the island which he has 

 found so fruitful an observatory, and his companionship is felt to be 

 a delightful privilege. Gatke is a painter by profession, and he has 

 a keen perception of the beautiful. He never allows his imagination 

 to run loose. He is too careful a savant to do that. But he takes us 

 into his confidences, tells us of the lickings he got as a boy in the 

 Mark of Brandenburg, the escapades of birds'-nesting days, the 

 ambition to paint which drew him to Heligoland, and the many 

 charming rencontres with rare birds that have fallen to his lot. Truly 

 marvellous his experience of rare birds has been, unequalled by any 

 of his European contemporaries. Much of his luck in meeting 

 strange birds was due to his intimate knowledge of the literature of 

 the subject ; to his great experience in handling skins obtained else- 

 where ; and last, but not least, to his natural aptitude of eye and ear. 

 But Gatke's enthusiasm was infectious. His zeal provoked zeal. 

 His friendly intercourse with the natives of the island offered many 

 opportunities for his tutoring them to distinguish between one species 

 and another. He taught them what rarities to expect, encouraged 

 them in the midst of failure, rewarded them generously when a rare 

 specimen was brought to him. During the long years of Gatke's 

 watch for migrating hosts of birds, many changes have taken place 

 in their movements. When he was a young man, the shorelark 

 {Otocovys alpestris) was hardly known to the island. Nowadays he assures 

 us that hundreds of thousands of shorelarks pass along Heligoland every 

 autumn. He gives us a dainty vignette from nature in his account of 

 the migration of the Golden-crested Wren {Regulns cristatus), the " Lutj 

 Miiiisk " or Little Wren of the Heligoland folk : " Imagine a mild 

 and clear evening in spring ; the sun has set long since and the voices 

 of all the feathered wanderers are hushed in sleep — the last soft 

 ' pitz ' of the Redbreast has long since died away, and for some con- 

 siderable space no sound has disturbed the scented stillness of the air. 

 Suddenly through the silence, like half in a dream, the clear fine note 

 of our little wren is heard, and soon afterwards the bird is seen rising 

 from the neighbouring bushes, through the still luminous evening sky; 

 at measured intervals its call-note — ' hilt — hut — hiit ' — is heard as it 

 flies off, in slightly ascending spirals, over the neighbouring gardens ; 

 then from every bush — here, there, near and far — the cry is answered 

 * hut, — hut, hut, — In'it, hut — hiit,' in loud, clear tones, and from all sides 

 its travelling companions, wakened for the journey, rise upwards, 

 following in the wake of the earliest starter ; the latter, however, when 

 the answering voices have announced that all the sleepers are aroused, 

 ceases circling about, and rises with breast erect and brief and rapid 

 strokes of the wings, almost vertically upwards ; soon all assemble in 

 a somewhat loose swarm, the call-notes are silenced when the last 

 straggler has joined the departing flock, and the tiny wanderers vanish 

 from sight " (p. 318). It is no exaggeration to say that there are 

 scores of passages equal in beauty to that just cited. Nor should it 

 be forgotten that in some respects Gatke stands alone. No other 

 European naturalist shares his knowledge of the habits of the yellow- 

 browed warbler [Phylloscopiis superciltosus), Richard's Pipit {Anthus 

 richardi), or sundry other species of birds. But the volume must be 

 read from end to end to be fully appreciated. Gleams of humour 

 light up its pages when least expected, as when the veteran smacks 

 his lips at the prospect of fat thrushes caught in the throstle-garden, 

 or gives us a sly recipe for making a pie of kittiwakes. Alas ! there 

 is also a pathos in the work, for it is the magnum opus of an aged 

 worker. We sadly fear that we may hope for no more brilliant essays 



