VOL. XIV.] NOTES. 47 



Previous examples of this American Crake have been taken 

 in Berkshire, near Cardiff, Tiree, Inner Hebrides, and Lewis, 

 Outer Hebrides, while one obtained about one hundred miles 

 to the west of Ireland was recently recorded in our pages 

 (Vol. XIII., p. 298), by Mr. C. Borrer. 



REVIEW. 



The Birds of the British Isles and their Eggs. By T. A. Coward, F.Z.S., 

 etc. First Series, pp. 376. 242 col. illustrations and 65 photo- 

 graphs. 6^X4^ in. Warne. 1919. 12s.6d.net. 



One is often asked to recommend a book on British birds suitable for 

 beginners, which while simply written, shall not be unscientific, and 

 containing a recognizable coloured figure of every bird likely to be met 

 with in the British Isles, at a reasonable price. No serious attempt has 

 been made hitherto to meet this demand. The great works of Gould, 

 Dresser and Lilford were issued at prices which were and are still pro- 

 hibitive, at any rate for beginners, and none of the smaller handbooks 

 contained really good coloured plates. The late Rev. C. A. John's 

 British Birds in their Haunts and Hudson's British Birds contained 

 excellent little black and white figures of most of our birds, but 

 the letterpress of both is now somewhat out of date, and the larger 

 works edited by A. G, Butler and F. B. Kirkman appealed to a different 

 class of readers. The book now before us comprises the whole of the 

 Passeres and other orders up to and including the Pelecaniformes, so 

 that another similar volume should complete the work. 



The first glance shows that the coloured plates are a .strong feature 

 of the book. They are three-colour reproductions on a much reduced 

 scale of those which have been long admired in Lilford 's Coloured 

 Figures. They naturally lose somewhat in reproduction ; a certain dull- 

 ness is inevitable, and the reduction is in some cases disproportionate. 

 For example, Thorbum's figure of Tengmalm's Owl appears as a full 

 page plate, while all the other Owls are reduced to half page size. It 

 would have been better to have chosen one of the largest species for 

 the full page plate, and to have given Tengmalm's Owl on a smaller 

 scale. Of the photographic illustrations we cannot speak so highly, 

 and we think several of them unworthy to appear in a work of this 

 kind. The figures of eggs are reproduced from Hewitson's well- 

 known woric and are less successful than those of the birds, some being 

 quite unrecognizable. Few oologists would be able to assign names 

 to the figures of the eggs of Crested and Bearded Tit (pi. 58) or the 

 Grasshopper-Warbler (pi. 65), Wood-Lark and Cirl Bunting (pi. 41), 

 while the eggs of the Wheatear and Dipper are represented as similar 

 in colouring (pi. 84). Apparently the' names of Hobby and Kestrel 

 have been transposed on pi. 158, while the " Turle " (pi. 34) represents 

 a bird unknown to us, unless the name is a misprint for Twite. 



The nomenclature follows the B.O.U. list of 1912, but Mr. Coward is 

 evidently in touch with current literature and includes several brief 

 references to species added since that date. The articles on birds are 

 workmanlike, and show a sound knowledge of our British birds. Foreign 

 visitors are wisely treated briefly, and little space is devoted to descrip- 

 tions of plumage and practically none to geographical distribution. 



