THE ZOOLOGIST 



FOE 



1873, 



'aiim at leto %mk. 



Notes on the Birds of Damara Land and the Adjacent 

 Countries of South- Western Africa. By the late Charles 

 John Andersson. Arranged and Edited by John Henry 

 GuRNEY. London : Van Voorst. 1872. Demy 8vo, 

 394 pp. letter-press, three outline litho. plates and a map. 



The Birds of Africa — but before I say anything of her birds I must 

 say a word or two of Africa herself, and yet another subject inter- 

 venes and takes precedence even of Africa herself. I mean the maps : 

 the first step towards an intelligible appreciation of Africa would 

 be the publication of entirely new maps, in which all rivers, lakes, 

 mountains and cities, the site of which is either absolutely ficti- 

 tious or in the slightest degree suppositious, should be entirely 

 obliterated. Wherever the surveyor has laid down a single feature, 

 whether natural or artificial, the Suez Canal or the Table Mountain 

 at the Cape, every 'ot and tittle of his work should be religiously 

 preserved. With these subtractions and additions we should have 

 a map which to the sincere truth -seeker would be an inestimable 

 boon : we may perhaps hope that our remote posterity may enjoy 

 such a boon; we of the present generation certainly shall not. At 

 present we content ourselves with Africa as depicted by the historian 

 from very flimsy materials, or by the poet who, after the method of 

 his craft, has drawn largely on his imagination. From the historian 

 and the poet, as illustrated by modern travellers, we find evidence 

 sufl5cieut to convince the most sceptical of philosophers that the 



second series — VOL. VIII. B 



