444 



NA TURE 



[September 5, 1901 



exact breeding localities of the rarer birds, the author has 

 striven to make his manual useful to the many English- 

 men who go to Iceland every year for various purposes, 

 and who may take some mterest in its birds. Besides 

 reviewing and recommending certain earlier accounts of 

 the ornithology, he names a good guide-book and some 

 maps ; and he gives a brief but useful description of the 

 plumage of most of the birds (except those that are 

 common and universally known) and also of the nests 

 and eggs. In the introduction, too, we find some very 

 necessary remarks on the English habit of misspelling 

 and mispronouncing Icelandic words. And following 

 this, and a statement upon the law as to the close-time 

 for birds in Iceland, are three pages of most instructive 

 suggestions on the right pronunciation of the language. 

 All the species on the Icelandic list (one hundred and 

 three, exclusive of eleven the occurrence of which is 

 doubtful, and one, the great auk, which is extinct) are 

 clearly and accurately dealt with in the body of the work ; 

 and the native names of the birds, if any, are indicated. 

 The volume is in truth a manual, and its handy size will 

 enable any traveller, however light his baggage, to find 

 room for it. 



From its geographical position, far north, and on the 

 extreme west of the Patearctic region, the avifauna is, 

 as might be expected, a somewhat poor and limited one. 

 It is made up, roughly speaking, of thirty-seven resident 

 species, twenty-seven summer migrants (making sixty- 

 four breeding species, three of which are a little doubtful), 

 twenty-one occasional visitors and eighteen rare strag- 

 glers. The resident land-birds number only seven, and 

 the land-birds which come to Iceland in summer to breed 

 only five. The fauna is poorest in Passeres, of which we 

 in England have so many ; in Iceland there are only 

 nineteen, eleven of which are only occasional or rare 

 visitors. There are seven birds of prey on the list, two 

 of which are resident and one a summer migrant. The 

 three owls are only visitors. There is one game-bird, 

 viz. the rock ptarmigan. We should add that the author 

 is not responsible for this attempt to analyse the Ice- 

 landic avifauna. The great auk at one time resorted to 

 Iceland. Nowadays, perhaps, the northern wren, the 

 great northern diver (a western species, breeding nowhere 

 else in Europe, unless it does so in the north of Scot- 

 land), and the Iceland falcon, famous among falconers 

 in old days, are the most interesting birds to be found 

 there. With regard to the wren (which is protected all 

 the year round by law) the author remarks that there can 

 be no reasonable doubt • that the great increase of 

 domestic cats in Iceland of recent years is leading very 

 rapidly to its extermination — a fact which bird-protec- 

 tionists in England would do well to lay to heart. But 

 Iceland is very rich in ducks and geese, sixteen — possibly 

 eighteen -species breeding there. Perhaps from a zoo- 

 geographical point of view Iceland is most interesting 

 as forming a link between the Patearctic and Nearctic 

 regions. Indeed, the number of birds which are common 

 to the Icelandic and Greenlandic avifaunas, either as 

 regular inhabitants or wanderers, is surprising. The 

 manual, illustrated by three interesting plates and a 

 map, is one of the most acceptable books which have 

 fallen into the hands of the ornithologist for a long 

 time. 



NO. 1662, VOL. 64] 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Bliiteyigeheimnissc : Eine B/ii/c)il>ioloi^ie in Einzt'lbildern. 

 By Georg Worgitzky. Mit 25 Abbildungen im Text. 

 Buchschmuck von J. V. Cissarz. Pp. x -I- 134. (Leipzig : 

 Teubner, 1901J. Price 3 marks. 



This title recalls that which was used in 1793 by Christian 

 Konrad Sprengel, and to him the author traces the 

 beginning of the bionomical study of flowers and their 

 fertilisation which forms the subject of the little book 

 before us. .Since Sprengel laid the foundations there 

 have been many workers, notably Darwin and Hermann 

 Miiller, and many new facts have come to light, while 

 others observed more than a century ago have been 

 rendered more precise. Therefore the author has been 

 led to supply an introduction to the study, simple enough 

 for beginners, and at the same time up-to-date. His 

 method has been to select two dozen common plants, in 

 flower at various times of year from February to October, 

 and to tell the story of their pollination. 



Poppy, wild rose, lime, buttercup, forget-me-not, 

 meadow cranesbiU and wild radish form the first 

 and simplest group ; white dead-nettle, iris, violet, 

 campanula, figwort, cowslip and pink introduce the 

 student to slight complications ; broom, spotted orchis, 

 wild carrot, centaury and ling illustrate special adapta- 

 tions ; while flowers pollinated by the wind are exempli- 

 fied by ribwort, rye, hazel, willow and pine tree. The 

 second part of the book is occu]3ied with a simple discus- 

 sion of the parts of the flower, the modes of attracting 

 useful visitors, and warding off those that are injurious, 

 dichogamy, self-pollination and kindred topics. 



We cannot say that there is either novelty or individu- 

 ality in Worgitzky's book, but it is clear, accurate, with- 

 out waste of words, and objective from first to last. The 

 pages are adorned with decorative devices and there are 

 twenty-five simple figures with the amount of enlarge- 

 ment always indicated. Our only grumble is that the 

 author keeps so consistently to the role of the descriptive 

 naturalist and does not discuss the numerous evolutionist 

 problems which his facts inevitably raise in the inquiring 

 jnind. Of course this must have been done deliberately, 

 but we think that the author should have given clearer 

 indication that beyond the floral secrets which he lays 

 bare there lie others not less fascinating, though more 

 mysterious. 



T/ic Lcpidoptcra of ilic British Islands : a Descriptive 



Account of tlic Families, Genera and Species Indigenous 



to Great Britain and Ireland, their Preparatory States, 



Habits and Localities. By Charles G. Barrett, F.E.S. 



Vol. vii. Heterocera, Geometrina. Pp.335. (London: 



Lovell Reeve and Co., Ltd., 1901.) Price 12^-. net ; 



large paper, with coloured plates, 63^. net. 



Among the numerous smaller publications on British 



Lepidoptera, most of which are useful and interesting in 



their own way, Mr. Barrett's great work pursues the even 



tenor of its course, a Triton among minnows, and likely 



to hold its place as the standard work for the student of 



British Lepidoptera for many a long day. 



The present volume includes the full life-history, as far 

 as is known, of eighty-four species of Geometrida- con- 

 sidered as British, two or three more being incidentally 

 mentioned as European species probably admitted into 

 our British lists by error. These are placed in the three 

 families Boarmid;r?, Geometridae and Acidalidas, the genus 

 Ephyra being included in the latter family (Ephyra and 

 Hyria being the only genera of the last family included 

 in this volume), while the portion of the Boarmida; which 

 falls into it includes species formerly classed in Guen^e's 

 families Fidonidic, Ennomid:c, Aniphidasid;e, Boarm- 

 ida;, Hibernidae, Zerenidas and Ligida;. Guenee's sub- 

 division of the Geometridse was never accepted in 

 Germany, where the number of families was reduced by 



