350 Recent Literature. \fu'^ 



is something disappointing in them. Aside from the crowding of several 

 species on the same plate, and the numerous different reductions from the 

 natural size of the birds, details for which the artist cannot be held re- 

 sponsible, there is also something wrong with the perspective. The birds 

 are apparently too large for the landscapes or, to put it the other way, the 

 landscapes are too small for the birds, as the human eye really sees them 

 under ordinary conditions in nature. With our faces to the ground within 

 a few inches of a Woodcock, he no doubt would look like plate 31, and the 

 landscape of plate 2 would appear lovely if a group of Loons were not 

 SAvimming on the very tips of our noses. Compare these compositions with 

 the charming Pintails of plate 15, or the Hooded Mergansers of plate 11, 

 where the disproportion of birds and landscapes is reduced to a minimum 

 and every stroke of the artist's brush is pleasing. Bird artists of late years 

 have been made victims of the popular demand for pictures showing birds 

 as well as their surroundings at the same time and personally the reviewer 

 is of the opinion that this combination is rarely successful and that the 

 plates of long ago when devoid of background are more dignified and 

 effective than any of the modern efforts to combine in one picture things 

 that are really incompatible. — J. D., Jr. 



Godman's Monograph of the Petrels.' — Part V, published in May, 1910, 

 brings to a close the most important and one of the most needed ornitho- 

 logical monographs of recent years, and we heartily congratulate the 

 author on the successful completion of this great undertaking. As stated 

 in the Preface, for many years the author's colleague, Osbert Salvin, 

 was engaged in amassing a large and valuable series of specimens of Petrels 

 from all available sources, with the intention, "on the completion of the 

 'Tubinares' for the twenty-fifth volume of the Catalogue of Birds in the 

 British Museum, to write a fuller account of the Petrels, and publish it as 

 a Monograph, illustrated by coloured figures of each species; for that 

 purpose we had some forty plates prepared by Mr. Keulemans, but Salvin 's 

 untimely death, in June, 1898, put an end to this project." Although the 

 work was delayed for many years, in consequence of Mr. Godman's occu- 

 pation with the completion of the 'Biologia Cent rali- Americana,' the 

 preparation of the plates was continued, and on the completion of that 

 immense undertaking he turned again to this long-projected Monograph, 



1 A 1 Monograph 1 of the | Petrels 1 (Order Tubinares) | By | Frederick Du Cane 

 Godman | D. C. L. F. R. S. | President of the British Ornithologists' Union I With 

 hand-colored Plates 1 by J. G. Keulemans | Witherby & Co. | 326 High Holborn 

 London | 1907-1910 — One Vol., large 4to, pp. (v + 381, 106 colored plates. Issued 

 in 5 parts: Part I, December, 1907; Part II, March, 1908; Part III, September, 1908; 

 Part IV, April, 1909; Part V, May, 1910. Edition, 225 numbered copies. Sub- 

 scription price, £2 5s. per part, or £10 10s. for the whole work, if paid in advance. 



For previous notices in 'The Auk' see Vol. XXV, 1908. pp. 244, 338; Vol. XXVI, 

 1909, pp. 95, 223. 



