33 6 Recent Literature. Tale 
ulating the genial author upon the successful issue of his undertaking. 
The second volume, completed this year upon the appearance of the final 
one of the numerous parts in which the whole has been issued, carries 
the Birds “‘of Song” through the remainder of the oscinine Passerines, 
while those ‘‘of Beauty” include the clamatorial Passerines, the Pica- 
rians, and the Psittacines. These are illustrated upon 18 colored plates — 
afew of the subjects of these compositions having been already treated 
in Vol. I—raising the number of plates to 36, evenly balanced between 
the two volumes in which the work is now finally bound. They are hand- 
somely bound in full Russia, gilt-edged, and beautifully printed with 
rubricated margins and other typographical elegancies. There is no 
falling off in the execution of the plates, and in fact no more luxurious 
a work on ornithology has appeared in this country of late years. Mr. 
Nehrling steadily maintains to the finish the faithful and careful prepa- 
ration of the text to which he addressed himself in the beginning; it is 
written with fine feeling, good temper, and excellent judgment, to present 
popular life-histories which shall ‘“‘combine accuracy and reliability of 
biography with a minimum of technical description.” The birds with 
which the author is familiar from personal experiences are treated in 
greatest detail—some of them as completely as by any previous writer ; 
and the rest are handled with judicious eclecticism in borrowing from the 
writings of others, always with generous acknowledgement. The author 
shows great tact in this particular — it is the reverse of that scissors-and- 
pastepot method of compilation which pads too many popular treatises. 
No more attractive and presentable volumes on our birds are now before 
the public; and we trust that this labor of love, as it certainly has been 
on Mr. Nehrling’s part, may meet with the full measure of recognition it 
so well deserves. The author has taken and will long maintain a unique 
position in North American ornithology; we did not prophesy aside 
from the mark, though we ventured to do so before the event, in record- 
ing our conviction that Nehrling would awake some day to find his 
writings ranked with those we are accustomed to call classic.— E. C. 
Chapman’s ‘ Bird-Life.’! — When Mr. Chapman’s excellent ‘ Handbook 
of the Birds of Eastern North America’? was published it was very 
evident that the author had made a special study of the needs of young 
students of ornithology and other non-professional bird-lovers. That 
his task had been admirably executed is a matter of general information ; 
1 Bird-Life | A Guide to the Study of | Our Common Birds | by | Frank M. 
Chapman | Assistant Curator of the Department of Mammalogy and | Omi- 
thology in the American Museum of Natural | History, etc. | With seventy-five 
full-page plates and | numerous text drawings | by Ernest Seton Thompson | 
author of Art Anatomy of Animals, the Birds of Manitoba, etc. | New York: 
D. Appleton and Company. 1897. 12mo. pp. xii + 269. j 
2 Cf. Auk, Vol. XII, pp. 282-284. 
