NA TURE 



145 



THE BO YS' " YARRELL." 



An Illustrated Manual of British Birds. By Howard 

 Saunders, F.L.S., F.Z.S. Part I., April 1888. (Lon- 

 don : Gurney and Jackson.) 



\ BOYS' " Yarrell " is a book that many ornithologists 

 have long wished to see. More than six years ago a 

 scheme for producing one was thought out, and Mr. 

 Howard Saunders was invited, and consented, to aid in 

 its production. Dis alitcr visum— the scheme fell through 

 for the time ; but now the proposed coadjutor has been 

 favoured by fortune, and has by himself been able to put 

 it into operation. He is to be heartily congratulated 

 accordingly, and not only he, but scores if not hundreds 

 of boys — to whom the work, just begun, will afford no less 

 delight than good instruction. 



From the moment when the first part of the original 

 edition of Yarrell's " British Birds " appeared — now more 

 than fifty years ago — it was seen that a new era in the study 

 had dawned. The author had no other scientific training 

 than that which, amid the turmoil of business, he had been 

 able to acquire for and by himself; but he knew the value 

 of scientific work, and having an uncommon amount of 

 common-sense, he knew that the introduction of too much 

 of it into his books would render them indigestible to the 

 unscientific public of those days. Hence his " British 

 Fishes" and " British Birds," though intentionally popu- 

 lar, are permeated by an only half-concealed thread of 

 scientific thought, which, without its interfering with their 

 rendableness, the true aspirant could catch, and guide him- 

 seli thereby to a higher level. From the publishers' point 

 of view, these works were successful beyond expectation ; 

 but they had one great drawback. They were abundantly 

 illustrated, and therefore necessarily expensive. This put 

 them, and especially the " British Birds," to which the 

 theme of the present notice relates, out of the reach of 

 almost all but those in easy circumstances. Scarcely a 

 school-boy, however much he might covet a copy, such as 

 he might happen to see in some more favoured hands, could 

 out of his pocket-money afford to buy a " Yarrell " ; and 

 even though the price of the later editions has been some- 

 what reduced, there is not one of them that would be within 

 his means. Moreover, they contained a good deal more 

 than he cared to know. The sort of information he 

 wanted was, let us say, whether the bird he saw on the 

 top of a hedge was a Cirl- Bunting or not ; or whether, as 

 the gamekeeper had told him, the Sparrow-Hawk was 

 "that artful to turn hisself" into a Cuckoo in the spring ; 

 or, again, whether the bird that had suddenly risen as he 

 walked along the brook-side was a Summer-Snipe or a 

 Sandpiper, and what was the difference, if any, between 

 them. Of course he would a^so like to know how the Wild 

 Duck got herducklings down into the waterfrom the hollow 

 tree in which he had found her nest, and what became of 

 the Swallows in winter, and the Fieldfares in summer. 

 Yarrell's work gave all this in the best way possible, but 

 it added a great deal more that the school-boy did not care 

 a button for. It told him of " orders " and "genera," and 

 gave u characters " — which to him were as hard as Greek 

 Vol. xxxviii.— No. 972. 



verbs. Every now and then there was a bit of anatomy ; 

 but that was to the good, for your inquiring school-boy 

 rather likes making a rough dissection, and is pleased to 

 find that the windpipe of a drake differs from that of a 

 duck. But then, again, there was a good deal of " dis- 

 tribution," and he was bored by recollections of dreary 

 geographical lessons, 1 and was not interested at learning 

 that such or such a bird was found in some country with 

 a long name not easy to pronounce. 



With all these merits and defects, Yarrell's work, in all 

 its editions, undoubtedly held the field, and there grew up 

 more than one imitation of it — specious, pretentious, and 

 misleading. One of these plagiarisms has been " embel- 

 lished" (that, at least, is the word used by the publisher) 

 with coloured figures ; but unfortunately, among people 

 who knew no better, as well as among people who ought 

 to have known better, they have met with a success hardly 

 inferior to the work from which they have been ingeniously 

 and shamelessly " cribbed." This shows the exceeding 

 popularity of the subject ; but it is disgusting to find in 

 nearly every school-library one or more of these piratical 

 works — generally instead of the good, though more costly, 

 original, though sometimes on the same shelf with it, as if 

 the two were of equal authority. The common excuse is the 

 high price of "the " Yarrell," but no excuse can justify the 

 corruption of youthful minds by ignorance, twaddle, and 

 inaccuracy. Better hunger than poison — if both be deadly, 

 one will kill more quickly than the other ; and, since while 

 there is life there is hope, the chance of proper aliment 

 being timeously supplied exists in the former case, but in 

 the latter even the antidote, if such a thing there be, may 

 be exhibited in vain. 



The work now begun by Mr. Saunders ought to abolish 

 for ever the excuse just spoken of. This " Manual of 

 British Birds " is cheap, marvellously cheap, and as fully 

 illustrated 2 as ordinary boys can wish. That the design 

 he has followed is certain to have a good effect few in a 

 position to give an opinion can doubt, and his treatment 

 of it is satisfactory, considering the enormous difficulties 

 in the way. When one thinks of the vast amount that 

 has been written about British birds by men who have 

 written from their own knowledge — leaving wholly aside 

 the pilferers above complained of— it will be evident that 

 no ordinary discrimination is needed to extract the 

 essence and serve it up on an octavo page and a half, or 

 perhaps a few lines more, for this is practically the 

 amount of letterpress at Mr. Saunders's disposal, the top 

 of the first page being reserved for a woodcut of the 

 species. But Mr. Saunders has been a "Zoological 

 Recorder," and therefore has learnt the art of " boiling 

 down." Occasionally there is a tendency to " straggle " 

 — a favourite word of his, and one that is seldom apposite 

 — and if verbal criticism be allowable, a protest might be 

 made against " segregate" (more than once used) where 

 separate is meant. But generally Mr. Saunders sets an 

 admirable example in the matter of language, and one 

 that all ornithological writers might well follow, since 

 some of the more profuse of them have lately banished 

 grammar and etymology to the outer planets, while style 

 is a quality unthought of. 



1 All the same, the school-boy of forty or fifty years ago did learn some 

 geography — a kind of learning that has lately been almost wholly dropped. 



2 The illustrations consist mostly of reproductions of the well-known 

 " Yarrell" woodcuts. 



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