NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 219 
work, when completed, will be enabled to rearrange the pages and 
plates according to taste, or perhaps according to directions 
which may be given by the author with the last part. 
Mr. Booth has exercised a wise discretion in giving plates of 
such species only as are most needed. The young of Montagu’s 
Harrier, for example, and the young Whooper are figured for the 
first time. The former, says Mr. Booth, while still in the down, 
differ considerably from the young of the Hen Harrier. Shortly 
after hatching they exhibit a dull white down, which, as they 
increase in size, assumes a warm red tint. This colour fades 
after death, but never approaches the dirty white or dull leaden 
hue which pervades the down on the nestlings of Circus cyaneus. 
Five-and-twenty years ago Mr. Booth procured the eggs of 
Montagu’s Harrier from a nest placed amongst furze near Cats- 
field, in East Sussex. Since that time he has enjoyed many 
opportunities of observing this bird in Norfolk, and gives a 
pleasing description of the nature of its haunts from personal 
inspection. Such information as he sometimes conveys in a few 
paragraphs is worth pages of the generalities which one too often 
meets with in books on British birds, wherein the writers only 
veil their ignorance of details, which, for want of personal obser- 
vation, they are unable to give. 
Of such a common bird as the Greenfinch, Mr. Booth has 
some interesting notes to give. He says :— 
“ While residing in East Lothian I remarked that Greenfinches nested 
in considerable numbers, often in close proximity to one another, in the 
thorn hedges surrounding the plantations of beech near the coast of the 
Firth of Forth. In the South of England this habit of breeding in 
company may also be observed; in our garden near Brighton the birds 
were exceedingly plentiful during the summer of 1883, their nests in some 
instances being placed so thickly that after the autumn gales had carried off 
the leaves from the shrubs and young trees, at least half a dozen might be 
counted from one spot. The dense bushes of Cupressus, as well as privet, 
appeared to be selected in preference to other quarters, though willow, 
poplar, lime, elm, and red may were also well patronised. One exceedingly 
curious nest (the structure being of nearly twice the usual size), placed at 
the height of about six feet in a privet bush, attracted my attention, the 
whole of the foundation being composed of a large mass of the common 
stonecrop (Sedum acre), tore up from a rockery close at hand. This nest, 
being subsequently dragged out by a cat, the immense quantity of stonecrop 
used in its construction was plainly exposed to view.” 
