° '1919 J Recent Literature. oOo 



through gas clouds and barrage after all other means of communication had 

 failed. Few, we imagine, realized the extent of the ' Pigeon Service ' or 

 that the United States had a similar organization with which at least one 

 ornithologist, Mr. F. C. Lincoln, of the Colorado Museum, was connected. 

 Mr. Gladstone also describes the use of Canaries, which are much more 

 sensitive to poison gases than man, as a means of detecting the presence of 

 gas in tunnelling operations at the front, while singing Canaries were used 

 extensively on ambulance trains to cheer up the wounded soldiers. The 

 controversy between the farmers and the bird protective societies as to 

 whether birds, especially pheasants, were of more value during war times 

 as food or as crop protectors, was hotly waged and resulted in some tempo- 

 rary modifications in the game regulations. 



Mr. Gladstone's evidence is that air raids terrified some birds but not 

 others, while sea birds that were at first frightened by the air planes soon 

 became accustomed to them. Neither of these factors seems to have caused 

 any actual destruction of bird life, but the sinking of oil ships by the sub- 

 marines w T as a source of real danger, and large numbers of ducks and other 

 sea birds perished from their plumage becoming hopelessly caked with the 

 oil, so that flight was impossible. On the actual battlefield in France the 

 most reliable testimony is to the effect that the birds were but little affected 

 by the terrific upheaval going on around them, and returned again to nest 

 in the most devastated spots. Of course local conditions affected them to 

 some extent, but generally speaking they seemed indifferent to the noise of 

 battle. Mr. Gladstone in this connection cites Charles Waterton to the 

 effect that the noise of a gun is the one sound to which birds never become 

 accustomed, a theory which the war has pretty well disproved. 



Upon migration and habits the war seems to have had little or no effect, 

 although the destruction of large forest areas has, as in all cases of deforesta- 

 tion, affected the presence or abundance of species dependent upon such 

 environment for their existence. 



Mr. Gladstone has done a good work in collecting the information pre- 

 sented in this volume, which is not only an important record but a valuable 

 contribution to bird behavior and an exceedingly interesting book for the 

 general reader. — W. S. 



Mathews' ' The Birds of Australia.' : — The latest part of Mr. 

 Mathews' sumptuous work concludes the fifth volume and also completes 

 the treatment of the non-passerine birds, and the author takes this oppor- 

 tunity to add several species omitted from various preceding parts as well 

 as several appendices, etc. 



The part opens with the completion of the account of the Coucal, which 

 includes a description of Polophilus phasianinus melvillensis (p. 391), and 

 is followed by a consideration of that typically Australian group, the Lyre- 



i The Birds of Australia. By Gregory M. Mathews. Volume VII, Part V. July 10, 

 1919. pp. 385-499. + i-xii [Introduction, etc., to Vol. VJ. 



