RCVEUG 



The British Warblers : A History with Problems of their 

 Lives. By E. Eliot Howard, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. Parts 

 VII., VIII., IX. Coloured and Photogravure Plates. 

 (R. H. Porter.) 21s. net per Part.* 



Mr. Howard's work, commenced eight years ago, is now 

 completed with the publication of the ninth part, except 

 for two coloured plates which are to be sent separately to 

 subscribers as soon as they are ready. The great value 

 of the work as a whole lies in the fact that it represents 

 the results of a wonderful series of persistent and close 

 observations recorded with great care and detail. These 

 observations are concerned with the breeding habits (or 

 habits intimately connected with breeding) of the eleven 

 species of Warblers which are regular summer immigrants 

 to this country. Of the Dartford Warbler (Part IX.), owing 

 to lack of opportunity, the author has not much to say, 



Mr. H. Gronvold's beautiful plates, drawn, we believe, 

 from the author's careful sketches from life, are an important 

 feature of the work, in that they represent special attitudes 

 and actions of the birds assumed chiefl}^ during sexual 

 emotion. Mr. Howard's theories and explanations connected 

 with the habits he has so carefully noted, although extremely 

 interesting, must be reckoned, we think, of secondary 

 importance as compared with the observations themselves. 

 Had the author stopped here and not loaded the work with 

 descriptions and plates of fourteen other species which have 

 visited this country at irregular intervals he would have 

 been well advised. The details given of these species are so 

 scanty that the work fails entirely as a monograph of the 

 British Warblers, if that was the intention, and it seems 

 rather hard that the student of avian biology, to whom 

 the work must be of extreme value, should have to pay 

 for so much that is of little use to him. 



*For previous notices of this work see Vol. TI., pp. 67-8 ; Vol. HI. 

 pp. 62-4 ; Vol. IV., pp. 62-4, 320 ; Vol. VI., pp. 31-2. 



