112 Recent Literature. V]^. 



the verdict strongly in favor of the sparrows as an important natural 

 check upon the growth of noxious weeds. Says Dr. Judd : "When the 

 food of the native sparrows is divided into the three classes .... the 

 neutral part proves to be small, not exceeding a third of all that is 

 eaten ; the injurious part very small; and the beneficial part much larger 

 than that of most birds, and from five to ten times as great as the 

 injurious part. We may therefore safely conclude that, as a class, these 

 small birds are well worthy of our protection." The greater part of 

 the first fifty pages of this important and very interesting paper are de- 

 voted to an account of the author's methods of investigation, and the gen- 

 eral subject of the food of sparrows and its effect on agriculture, while 

 some forty pages treat of the food of the species individually. Several 

 pages are given to the European House Sparrow-, with the conclusion that 

 there is little to be said in its favor. "Its insectivorous habits are credit- 

 able, as far as they go, but they are insignificant, because the diet is almost 

 exclusively vegetable; and while it is in the vegetable fare that the value 

 of most sparrows consists, yet in the case of the English Sparrow the dam- 

 age to grain far overbalances the benifit of weed-seed destruction. Add- 

 ing to this the injury it causes to buildings and statues in cities, there is 

 no escape from the conclusion that the bird is a serious pest the extermi- 

 nation of which would be an unmixed blessing." 



It is to be hoped that Dr. Judd's convincing report on the economic 

 value of our native sparrows will have a wide distribution. — J. A. A. 



Bonhote's ' On the Evolution of Pattern in Feathers.' i — Mr. Bonhote's 

 paper is highly speculative and not eas\' to comprehend, nor does he him- 

 self appear to be very clear as to just what points he believes he has even 

 tentativelj' established. Toward the close of the paper he says: "My 

 object has rather been to show that all the many and diverse markings 

 on the feathers of birds are in the main variations of one type, namely : a 

 longitudinal stripe with great tendency towards lateral expansions into 

 transverse stripes, and that on modifications of this, by suppi-essing one 

 portion or increasing another, all the various patterns ha\e been built 

 up The main question that now remains to be answered is that relat- 

 ing to the method in which the pigment groups itself to form these mark- 

 ings, but that is a matter which I hope to be able to investigate when dealing 



with the question of colour-change To sum up .... it should be noted 



that the most exposed portions of a bird, generally the upper parts, undergo 

 a further evolution than those less conspicuously situated, and if tiiere be 

 any difference between the sexes, the male shows the higher form." 



He takes, primarily, in illustrating his theme, the European Sparrow 

 Hawk [Accipiter uis/es), his plate (pi. xix) giving "diagrammatic" but 



1 On the Evolution of Pattern in feathers. By J. L. Bonhote, M. A., F. Z. S. 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. London. 1901, pp. 316-326, pll. xix, xx. 



