i'26 Bibliographical Notices. 



present little book ' In Bird-land,' by Mr. Pike, may well rank 

 l)eside the best in this direction. The birds and their ways are for 

 tlie most part feelingly described, and the author shows himself to 

 be not only an observer but also a lover of nature. We are at one 

 with hira in his condemnation of the gamekeeper. The fauna of 

 these Islands has suffered great and irreparable losses at his 

 ignorant hands. But if the keeper is to be (subjected to the lash of 

 our displeasure, how much more so shall his employer, who signs 

 the death-warrants which he executes ? 



^lany of the illustrations of this book are excellent. Some are 

 bad. The frontispiece forces a grumble from us. It is really 

 beautiful, and it seems a pity that, since such work is possible, 

 some of the inferior or less interesting pictures were not suppressed, 

 and the remainder reproduced in the same way as the frontispiece. 

 What was lost in quantity would be repaid a hundredfold in 

 quality. 



There is some excuse for the use of photography in reproducing 

 actual outdoor scenes, or objects of natural history taken at first 

 hand, but to call in its aid to reproduce bad drawings is indeed a 

 sin. Tlie illustrations to the ' Birds of Eastern North America ' is 

 a case in point. The figures in this work are for the most part 

 grotesque ; they could scarcely be worse. 



As a " key " the book is doubtless useful. The terms, however, 

 employed in describing the topography of a bird are often faulty, 

 sometimes very much so. We must protest against the use of the 

 word " tertials " to indicate the long inner secondaries of the wing. 

 On page 3 '* tertials " are defined as " the few remaining rcmiges 

 which grow from the humerus." The feathers called " tertials '' in 

 the plates are only long inner secondaries : it is very doubtful 

 whether the parapteron and hypopteron can legitimately be regarded 

 as remiges. 



With a little pruning and revising this book conld be made worthy 

 of its author. 



A Natural History of the British Lepidojitera. A TexthooTc for 

 Students and Collectors. By J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. Vol. II. 

 London : Swan Sonnenschcin & Co., May 1900. Pp. Tiii, 584 ; 

 plates vii. 



Thk first volume of Mr. Tutt's great work on British Lepidoptera 

 appeared in January 1899, and alrcadj' the second volume is 

 lying before us. We are glad to find that the author has 

 received so much encouragement that he is enabled to proceed 

 with the book Avithout delay and in the most elaborate manner. 

 The second volume is thicker than the first by no less than 24 

 pages, and is similarly divided into two parts. The first part 



