January 26, 191 1] 



NATURE 



407 



his contemporaries. Boswell reports a saying of Johnson 

 in 1773 :— " Other people have strange notions, but they 

 conceal them. If they have tails they hide them, but 

 Monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel." 



Burnett's work " On the Origin and Progress of 

 Language," in which these speculations are put forward, 

 only began to appear in 1773, but his views were evidently 

 familiar at an earlier date. He became a Lord of Session 

 in 1764. Cecil H. Desch. 



University of Glasgow, January 16. 



[Mr. F. GiLLMAN, Brook House, Matlock, has sent a 

 letter to the same effect. — Ed. N.ature.] 



POPULAR ORNITHOLOGY.^ 



IX producing yet another book on the birds of 

 Great Britain '■ the editor points out that one 

 result of the growing interest taken during recent 

 years in the study ot ornithology is a considerable 

 addition to our knowledge of the habits of British 

 birds ; that as no comprehensive British work on the 

 subject has appeared since those of Yarrell (revised 

 by Newton and Saunders) and Seebohm, this know- 

 ledge is only available by searching through a large 

 and scattered literature ; that the new edition of the 

 Naumanns' work leaves unrecorded many of the 

 observations on the habits of our birds that have 

 been made in our own and other countries, and that 

 tfiere is therefore place for a work that will bring 

 together from every source, foreign and native, all 

 the available information of any importance concern- 

 ing the habits of British birds. To do this, and to 

 do it in a form interesting alike to the student of 

 animal life and the general reader, is the chief object 

 of the present undertaking. This is to say the least 

 an ambitious project. In carrying it out the editor 

 will have the assistance of the following writers, 

 J. L. Bonhote, William Farren, the Rev. 

 F. C. R. Jourdain, W. P. Pycraft, Edmund 

 Selous, A. Landsborough Thomson, and Miss Emma 

 L. Turner, who have been left to arranee and treat 

 the matter within each section of a chapter written 

 by them " in the way best suited to his style and tem- 

 perament, thus avoiding cut-and-dried uniformity with 

 its resulting aridity." 



The plan of the book differs in some important 

 particulars from that generally adopted. Each chapter 

 deals, not with a species, but a family, thus not only 

 emphasising the relationship of the species, but facili- 

 tating comparative treatment and avoiding unneces- 

 sary repetition of statements that apply equally to the 

 whole family or genus. In many cases it has been 

 found advisable to divide the chapter into sections. 

 In the present volumes all the finch genera are taken 

 together " owing to the marked similarity in the 

 general habits of the species," while the crow family 

 has been divided into groups. But when we find the 

 magpie and the jay grouped together for the same 

 reason as the finches and the raven separated from 

 the crows, and all three from the rook and the jack- 

 daw (which are taken together), it is quite evident 

 that " rigid uniformity in arrangement has not been 

 attempted." 



The information most often needed for reference is 

 placed at the head of the chapter, under the title of 

 "Preliminary Classified Notes," and refers to each 

 soecies separately. These comprise (i) description of 

 plumage ; (2) distribution ; (3) migration ; (4) nest and 

 eggs and information as to incubation, number of 

 broods, &c. ; (ji) food; and (6) period of the year during 

 which the species sings. So far as we can judge from 

 the present instalment, these have been carefully pre- 



1 "The BritUh Bird- Book. An Account of all the Birds. Nests and Eee* 

 fonnd m the British Isles. " Edited hy F. B. Kirkman. Vol. i., pp. xviii-!- 

 150: vol. 11., pp. 140. (London and Edinburgh: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 

 1910.) Price loj. M. net. 



NO. 2152, VOL. 85] 



pared, and contain accurate and concise information, 

 a detailed account, however, of the geographical dis- 

 tribution, as expressly stated in the preface, lying 

 outside the scope of this work, which professes to 

 deal comprehensively only with their habits. Those 

 portions of the chapters treating of the habits gener- 

 ally, and forming the greater part of the volume, 

 are somewhat gossipy and discursive in character, and 

 even bordering in parts on the whimsical, while their 

 popular character may be indicated by a reference to 

 the devotion of two-thirds of a page to such matter 

 as an account of Charles Dickins's ravens. 



Mr. Selous makes the startling statement that 

 young goldfinches are not fed apparently more than 

 once in an hour. But in a footnote we are .told that 

 the observations (on which the statement is founded) 

 were, it is true, made in the United States, and the 

 Latin name of the goldfinch was not given in the 



Fig. I — Blueheaded Wagtail's Nest and Young in Grass. 

 British Bird-Book." 



From ' ' The 



original paper. " Still, it seems probable that what 

 applies to the North American' species of goldfinch 

 would apply to our own." Wild speculations on prob- 

 abilit\' of this kind seem to be a waste of space. The 

 "American goldfinch," as a matter of fact, is quite 

 a different bird from our goldfinch, and is closely allied 

 to the siskin. It is a pity that the author of this 

 section did not learn its Latin name. We do not 

 think this portion of the work will supersede our old 

 friend "Newton's Yarrell." 



The second volume treats of the buntings, larks, 

 wagtails, pipits, the creeper and wren, in the order 

 named, the treatment often inclining to the fanciful. 

 In other places the grouping of the species, often 

 diverse except in name, seems to have raised a slight 

 difficulty, and some species — the shorlark, for in- 

 stance — might well have received a fuller notice. Of 



