1922.] Recenthj publuhed Ornithological Works. 577 



Beebe's new volume of essays. 



[The Edge of the Jungle. By William Beebe, Author of ' Jungle 

 Peace/ etc. Pp.237; with Index and Glossary. London (Witherby';, 

 1922. 8vo. Price 12s. 6rf.] 



lu the manufacture of books from material previously 

 published, there are at least two raetliods knowu among 

 authors. The writer may assemble, under a title indicative 

 of the character or scope of the collection, a series of 

 reprints of articles tbat he has written for one or more 

 magazines, and publish them in puribus — frankly as 

 separates — drawing attention to their source in a foreword, 

 and, it may be, adding to the headings in the table of 

 contents the name of the journals from which they were 

 borrowed. Such an assemblage has often served a most 

 useful purpose, and autlior, publisher, and reader may feel 

 that the compilation at least makes no pretence to first- 

 hand production. There is, however, a second method of 

 republication that does not make the same appeal, and 

 which, it must be confessed, seems difficult to reconcile 

 with the literary conscience. In this case the writer sup- 

 presses entirely the fact that most or all of his work has seen 

 the light of publication, and, ^^hile utilizing the essentials of 

 these contributions to periodical literature, so camouflages 

 tlie whole by re-paragraphing the text, deleting chapter 

 numbers, substituting quotation marks for italics, adding 

 a few illustrations, altering the phraseology of a few sen- 

 tences (or even by the addition of a few columns of new 

 matter), that the book has all the seeming of a fresh 

 publication. This last plan is, we regret to say, the one 

 chosen by Mr. Beebe. 



Whatever opinion may be held as to this policy of lifting 

 one's own goods from the literary counter, it hardly appears 

 necessary to disguise the origin of so many of the chapters 

 in the work under review, if for no other reason than that 

 the ' Atlantic Monthly,' admirable magazine as it is, can 

 rarely be found on the tables of British readers. In any 

 case, those who have not discovered these papers in the 

 periodical just mentioned will be indebted to the author 



SER. XI. vol.. IV, 2 1' 



