V °&? r ] Recent Literature. 247 



Raine's Bird-Nesting in North-West Canada. 1 — From what we can 

 gather this work has not as jet come into the hands of many of our pro- 

 fessional ornithologists, nor has it up to the present time been reviewed 

 in the pages of 'The Auk.' It is an octavo volume of about two hundred 

 pages, and its illustrations consist in the main of six colored plates of 

 eggs of birds (61 specie6), together with numerous lithographs of birds, 

 scenery, and heads of mammals, and a variety of text-cuts. Both the 

 colored and uncolored lithographs were drawn upon stone by the author 

 himself, so he is wholly responsible for them. Apparently Mr. Raine 

 spent the month of June, 1891, in the Manitoban region, and the present 

 book is a running narrative of his doings there during that time. From 

 the 'Preface' we learn that though "the title of the book would lead 

 readers to expect the work to be purely Oological, it will be found to treat 

 on matter not strictly Ornithological. I have branched off and given 

 descriptions of the habits of the more important animals inhabiting the 

 region traversed, and have also given a description of the scenerv 

 between Toronto and Vancouver. . . . I have given accurate descriptions 

 of the birds' eggs, and also given their measurements. . . . The book 

 does not describe all the species which inhabit the Northwest, for man}' 

 common species known to be summer residents were not even observed, 

 and the songs of many warblers, vireos, sparrows, and other small birds 

 were heard in the bluffs and along the wooded streams, but I could not 

 recognize the species." 



It is evident from all this that Mr. Raine claims for his book, first, a 

 popular descriptive part; and secondly, a scientifically accurate oological 

 part. We propose only to concern ourself with the latter, and that as 

 briefly as possible. We would hardlj' even be expected here to take our 

 author's ludicrous figures of birds and their nests into consideration, for 

 both space and our time are altogether too valuable to be squandered in 

 any such manner. Judging from its unfeathered tarsi, his figure of a 

 Golden Eagle, for example, evidently does not represent that bird, and 

 it may be cited as an average specimen of the work of this thoroughly 

 unreliable artist. 



We turn first then to the six colored plates of the eggs. None of these 

 are numbered on the plate, and as the figures on each plate run 1, 2, 3 and 

 so on, it renders it impossible to refer to any particular specimen either 

 by number or plate. Personally, I have compared many of these colored 

 drawings with large series of eggs of the species they are supposed to 

 represent, and we may say, as a rule, they are, in the matters of outline, 

 coloring, and measurements, highly inaccurate, and can in no way be 

 depended upon. 



Lastly, this work is so pregnant with statements in regard to nests and 

 eggs of birds which Mr. Raine alleges to have either seen or taken in 



1 Bird-Nesting in North-West Canada. Walter Raine. Illustrated. Hunter, Rose & 

 Co., Toronto : 1892. 



