490 The Zoologist — November, 1866. 



'A Naturalist's Ramble to the Orcades." By Arthur W. Crichton, 

 F.L.S , Z.S., &c. Fcap. 8vo., 13-2 pp. letter-press, and a litho- 

 graphic frontispiece by Wolf". London: Van Voorst. 1866. 

 Price four shillings. 



This little book is a perfect gem : the sea-raevv floating on the 

 binding; the owl gliding over the bracken, loaded with provender for 

 her fluffy children, who, notwithstanding their well -stored larder, seem 

 to be wailing with all the gravity of judges, bewigged and begowned, 

 for the dainty morsel we see in transit; the cormorants holding their 

 nocturnal meeting on the little rocks, so evidently to be covered at 

 high-water: these things display to great advantage the peculiar 

 genius of Wolf, matchless as it is at producing a faithful transcript of 

 Nature ; and at the same lime they constitute a most fitting orna- 

 mentation to a book which tells of Nature and her ways where man 

 has not yet attempted lo drive his snorting locomotive, marring the 

 face of sunny day with its smoke, and making night hideous with its 

 unearthly scream. Seas and sea things, seals and oystcrcatchers, 

 puffins, peregrines and pigeons, hustle together as in their everyday 

 life, or pass by us like the figures in a moving panorama. 



Utterly regardless of the in(B and idoB under which collectors liave 

 classified our arsenic-seasoned skins, Mr, Crichton describes scenes 

 just as he sees them, adopting simply a chronological arrangement of 

 occurrences. 



There is something very captivating lo the general reader in this 

 desultory, this toucli-and-go method of noting observations, jotting 

 them down in the order in which they are made : it has the advantage, 

 too, of liberating the writer from all restraint, and I shall not hesitate 

 to adopt his plan in the arrangement or rather non-arrangement of my 

 extracts. 



Flight and Food of the Oystercatcher. — "At this moment, careering 

 at a great height, there passed an amazing flight of oystercalchers, the 

 nature of the birds being at once evident from the speed with which 

 they cut the air, carrying their long pointed mandibles straight before 

 them in a direct line with the centre of their bodies, and giving 

 utterance, one and all, to a sustained high-pitched piping note almost 

 amounting to a shake. * * * It must not be supposed, because 

 this bird is so named, that its entire food is restricted to its bivalve 



