NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 191 
in an experience extending over forty years, should have acquired 
a fund of sporting anecdote and Natural-History lore, of which 
probably the work before us gives but a small sample. 
The fact of the book having reached a fourth edition, and 
having doubled its original size (the present issue being in two 
volumes instead of one), is of itself almost enough to disarm the 
critic, although the mere fact of a book passing through several 
editions is not always to be viewed as an indication of merit. In 
the present case, however, the author has laid himself open to very 
little criticism, and in one chapter only does he appear to have got 
at all out of his depth. This is the chapter on Hawking, in the 
second volume. Had he confined his remarks in this chapter to 
the account which he gives of a day’s partridge-hawking in Dum- 
bartonshire, no exception could possibly be taken, for his descrip- 
tion is that of an eye-witness, the falconer being a gamekeeper and 
former pupil of old John Anderson, of hawking memory. But when, 
by way of preface to this narrative, he attempts a notice of the 
different hawks used by falconers, he makes half-a-dozen mistakes 
in almost as many lines. Had he possessed any personal know- 
ledge of the subject, or even a slight acquaintance with its 
literature, he would not have committed himself to such mis- 
statements as that the young male of the Goshawk is the Falcon- 
gentil, “and was once thought a distinct species”; that the 
Gerfalcon is “rather less than the gentil”; and that “these are 
rare in Scotland, although they occasionally build in some parts, 
particularly in the northern islands”! 
In other chapters such slips as these do not occur, for the simple 
reason that Mr. Colquhoun has made sure of his facts by personal 
observation. His first volume deals with Deer-stalking, Roe- 
hunting, Seal-shooting, and the pursuit of Capercaillie, Grouse, 
Ptarmigan, Woodcock, Snipe, and Wild-fowl, in the details of 
which the author has judiciously mingled much practical advice 
with the narrative of many a sporting incident. On this account, 
to a sportsman, his chapters are eminently readable and enter- 
taining. 
A considerable portion of the second volume is devoted to 
Fishing in all its branches on loch, sea and river, but the earlier 
chapters are occupied with some account of the various wild 
animals which the author has met with in the course of his 
rambles, as the Marten, the Wild Cat, the Otter, and Badger. 
