NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 471 
will furnish a supplemental list with Short diagnoses of the 
species not yet discovered within the limits of the county, 
the monograph, when complete, will include all the known British 
Spiders. Mr. Blackwall’s large volume, published by the Ray 
Society in 1861—64, records 304 Species; the present work 
already includes 510, and fresh additions are constantly being 
made to this total by the author and his fellow-workers in this 
special field of observation. 
T'ransactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, 
1878—9. Norwich: Fletcher & Son. 1879. 
TuE last part issued of these ‘ Transactions’ (vol. ii. part v.) 
contains several papers of unusual interest, of which we may 
specially notice that by Mr. Southwell on « Norfolk Decoys.” It 
will probably surprise many of our readers to learn that, in this 
county alone, Mr. Southwell has ascertained the former existence 
of no less than twenty-three decoys, while at the present day 
there are six still in working order. The statistics collected 
concerning the site and dimensions of these decoys, and the 
numbers of fowl annually taken, are very curious, and have fur- 
nished the writer with materials for an article which is interesting 
alike to sportsmen and naturalists. Under the head of “ The 
Gannet City,” Mr. J. H. Gurney, jun., gives an account of 
the Bass Rock and its feathered inhabitants from recent personal 
observation. No less than 1000 Solan Geese are said to be 
taken here annually, and the plucking is carried on by five or six 
women who are employed daily throughout the season at one 
shilling and sixpence a day each. The feathers are used for 
beds, and the eggs are taken for food. There are other sources 
of profit, however, besides the Gannets; Rabbits are plentiful, 
and the guano-grown grass affords capital pasturage for a score or 
so of sheep. So that the lessee who farms the rocks for the 
modest rent of twenty pounds a year from the owner, Sir Hugh 
Dalrymple, apparently makes a good thing out of it. 
Mr. Cordeaux contributes “ Some recent notes on the Avifauna 
of Lincolnshire,” in which he compares the present condition of 
his county as regards the range and distribution of certain species 
with its former aspect as depicted by Pennant and Montagu, and 
