?>2>^ 



Recent Literature. | j^]^ 



ulating the genial author upon the successful issue of his undertaking. 

 The second volume, completed this year upon the appearance of the final 

 one of the numerous parts in which the whole has been issued, carries 

 ^he Birds "of Song" through the remainder of the oscinine Passerines, 

 ■while those "of Beauty" include the clamatorial Passerines, the Pica- 

 rians, and the Psittacines. These are illustrated upon iS colored plates — 

 a few of the subjects of these compositions having been already treated 

 in Vol.1 — raising the number of plates to 36, evenly balanced between 

 the two volumes in which the work is now finally bound. They are hand- 

 somely bound in full Russia, gilt-edged, and beautifully printed with 

 rubricated margins and other typographical elegancies. There is no 

 falling off in the execution of the plates, and in fact no more luxurious 

 a work on ornithology has appeared in this country of late years. Mr. 

 Nehrling steadily maintains to the finish the faithful and careful prepa- 

 ration of the text to which he addressed himself in the beginning; it is 

 written with fine feeling, good temper, and excellent judgment, to present 

 popular life-histories which shall "combine accuracy and reliability of 

 biography with a minimum of technical description." The birds with 

 which the author is familiar from personal experiences are treated in 

 greatest detail — some of them as completely as by any previous writer; 

 and the rest are handled with judicious eclecticism in borrowing from the 

 writings of others, always with generous acknowledgement. The author 

 shows great tact in this particular — it is the reverse of that scissors-and- 

 pastepot method of compilation which pads too many popular treatises. 

 No more attractive and presentable volumes on our birds are now before 

 the public; and we trust that this labor of love, as it certainly has been 

 on Mr. Nehrling's part, may meet with the full measure of recognition it 

 so well deserves. The author has taken and will long maintain a unique 

 position in North American ornithology; we did not prophesy aside 

 from the mark, though we ventured to do so before the event, in record- 

 ing our conviction that Nehrling would awake some daj' to find his 

 writings ranked with those we are accustomed to call classic. — E. C. 



Chapman's ' Bird-Life.' ' — When ISIr. Chapman's excellent ' Handbook 

 of the Birds of Eastern North America'^ was published it was very 

 evident that the author had made a special study of the needs of young 

 students of ornithology and other non-professional bird-lovers. That 

 his task had been admirably executed is a matter of general information ; 



• Bird-Life | A Guide to the Study of | Our Common Birds | by | Frank M. 

 Chapman | Assistant Curator of the Department of Mammalogy and | Orni- 

 thology in the American Museum of Natural | History, etc. | With seventy-five 

 full-page plates and | numerous text drawings | by Ernest Seton Thompson | 

 author of Art Anatomy of Animals, the Birds of Manitoba, etc. | New York : 

 D. Appleton and Company. 1897. i2mo. pp. xii + 269. 



■'- Cf. Auk, Vol. XII, pp. 282-284. 



