THE BOOK SHELF {f 



Field Book of American Trees and Shrubs, F. Schuyler Mathews. G. P. 



Putnam's Sons. 465 pages. $2.00, bound in cloth; $2.50, bound^in full 



flexible leather. 



Field Book of American Wild Flowers, revised and enlarged, twenty-second 



printing. Field Book of American Wild Birds and their Music, fifteenth 



printing, by the same author and publisher and sold for the same price 



Mr. Mathews has long been known to the lover of out-door life; in fact he 



was the first writer in Xature-Study in America to give us popular information 



in regard to the familiar trees, plants and animals. He is always reliable, and 



writes most interestingly and with his skilled and artistic hand, pictures for us 



what he describes. His drawings are accurate and truly illustrative. 



In 1902 appeared his Field-book of American Wild Flowers and the Editor 

 has already worn out two copies of this admirable little book. It is just the 

 size to slip into the pocket, it is very fully illustrated and it gives what so few 

 of the identification books give, — interesting and important facts about the 

 habits of plants. And while there are in this volume 24 attractive, colored 

 illustrations, yet these are no more useful than the pen and ink illustrations 

 which are as near perfection in the matter of specific characteristics as is possi- 

 ble for an artist to make. 



In 1904 followed a volume of similar size, — The Fieldbook of Wild Birds and 

 their Music. This is a serious attempt to transcribe the songs of birds. 

 Unfortunately the writer is not a musician, and also has never yet found an 

 instrument with sufficient bird-like tone to play the notes in any adequate 

 manner. But the book has been of great use for there are 38 colored plates and 

 half as may illustrations in black and white, and the accounts of bird habits are 

 excellent. Moreover, there is one lesson that the book teaches to even the 

 most unmusical and this is the great variety of songs the individual of a species 

 develops, a fact often ignored. 



The Fieldbook of American Trees and Shrubs, which has recently appeared, 

 is in many ways the most ambitious volume of the series, since it covers the 

 more common trees of the Pacific Coast. However, it is essentially a book 

 adapted to the United States east of the Rockies. The strong point in Mr. 

 Mathews descriptions is that he tells us tersely those things which we most 

 desire to know about a species. This is especially true, in this volume, of those 

 trees with which he is personally familiar. Mr. Mathews shows his courage 

 by describing 69 species of Crataegus and his most valuable contribution to the 

 separation of the species of Hawthorns are his very graphic pen pictures of the 

 leaves and fruits. (The writer always secretly believed that the Creator 



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