July 28, 1904] 



NA TURE 



259 



mat;;pies and green woodpeckers are stated to be more 

 common at the present day than was formerly the 

 case, while it is only of late years that the pushing 

 starling has taken to breed in the district. With a 

 bare reference to the account of the author's last sight 

 of a pair of Cornish choughs — possibly the last of 

 their kind — we must take leave of a charming 

 volume. 



In any work devoted to outdoor life in Norfolk the 

 element of sport is certain to loom large, next to which 

 birds will probably claim a considerable share of the 

 author's attention, and Mr. Robinson's volume is no 

 exception to this rule. Such subjects as " a royal 

 shoot " and " beside the covert " are, indeed, inter- 

 calated with chapters on " panics in bird-land," " the 

 hawk's harvest," and the "birds of autumn," and 

 throughout the portions devoted to the wild life of the 

 count\" there will be found scattered many observations 



RELATIOX OF RAINFALL TO RUN OFF. 



IN Nature of January 7 (vol. Ixix. p. 226) notice was 

 directed to the attention paid by the Geological 

 Department of the United States to the water re- 

 sources of the country, and to the series of reports 

 that had been issued relating to the supply available 

 for domestic and business purposes, for power and for 

 irrigation. We have recently received a further series 

 of reports relating to the progress of the stream 

 measurements for the year 1902 carried out on the 

 northern and southern Atlantic coasts, Mississippi 

 River, Great Lakes, Pacific coast and Hudson Bay 

 drainage districts ; the hydrography of California and 

 the storage reservoir there ; and an account of the 

 irrigation of India. 



With the exception of the last, these volumes 

 consist almost entirelv of statistical records of the flow 



/■/;<>/ .-.v./A /y C. Rdd. 



\\ hich canniit fail to be of interest to the field-naturalist 

 and lover of the country. .\ feature of the work is the 

 candid and straightforward manner in which the 

 utility or harmfulness of the mammals and birds gener- 

 ally classed by keepers as " vermin " are discussed, 

 no special pleading being used to afford any of these 

 creatures exemption from destruction when, in the 

 author's opinion, it is well merited. Among the 

 mammals which, according to Mr. Robinson, rightly 

 occupy a place in the " keeper's museum " are the 

 stoat and the hedgehog, the indictment against the 

 latter, from the keeper's point of view, being even 

 heavier than the one in Bell's " British Quadru- 

 peds." 



To residents in Norfolk the book should prove 

 specially welcome, but it is also one w-hich can be 

 taken up to while away an idle hour by every reader 

 interested in sport and country life. R. L. 



NO. 18 I 3. VOL. 70] 



of streams, and although of great value to .\merican 

 hydrologists, do not call for any special notice. 



Paper No. 80 of the series of hydrographic investi- 

 gations on the relation of rainfall to run off, compiled 

 by Mr. George W. Rafter, contains information which 

 is of value to those interested generally in the ques- 

 tion of water supply. 



The author of the paper commences by saying that, 

 as the result of many years' study of the problem in- 

 dicated by the title of the paper, he has come to the 

 conclusion that no general formula is likely to be 

 found expressing accurately the relation of rainfall 

 to the run off of streams, for these vary so widely in 

 their behaviour that every stream is a law unto itself. 



Mr. Rafter directs attention to the desirability of 

 the adoption of uniformity or standardisation of the 

 units of measurement, and warns engineers to be very 

 slow to add to the number of standards of measure 



