38 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



A Vertebrate Fauna of Sutherland, Caithness, and West Cromarty, 

 By J. A. Harvie Brown and T. E. Buckley. 8vo, pp. 344, 

 with Illustrations. Edinburgh : Douglas. 1887. 

 This volume is understood to be the first of a series on the 

 Vertebrate Zoology of Northern Scotland considered in its 

 physical aspects. Such a spirited venture can hardly fail to 

 enlist the sympathy and support of all working naturalists. 

 Commencing with an elaborate scenic description of the area 

 explored, the writers' experience, extending over eighteen years, 

 has enabled them to supply a very striking narrative. Whether 

 the "great brown saucer" of Caithness, with its dreary mono- 

 tonous expanse of " flows," or " the birch-clad hollows, sparkling 

 rivers and cascades" of western Sutherland be described, the 

 authors' style is equally felicitous. A single example may suffice 

 to indicate the general character of the earlier chapters. The 

 parish of Assynt is computed to include upwards of 300 lochs : — 



" These gems, set in the dark moorland or high on the shoulder of one 

 of the monarchs of mountains, glisten and dance in the joy of summer 

 sunshine, or fade and gleam more darkly in the winter rain and snow 



drift Many of these lovely sheets of water are studded over with 



birch-clad islets, under the branches of which flourish the giant fronds of 



the great royal fern, Osmunda regalis Nor is life absent here in 



the bright summer time. The sweet plaintive song of the Willow Warbler, 

 the startling cry of the Common Sandpiper, the trill of the Dunlin, the 

 Teoch-vingh of the Greenshank, — from which this last species gets its 

 Gaelic name, — or the wail of the Curlew, and the discontented chatter of 

 the Gulls, are ever constant to the ear. The Heron builds her unshapely 

 nest on birch trees, only a few feet from the ground, and the Hooded Crow 

 flies silently on predatory quest intent, while close to shore, off some green 

 island in the centre, swims a Black-throated Diver, occasionally uttering 

 his hoarse and guttural greeting to his mate, as she sits on her two dark 

 olive eggs, only a few feet from the water's edge." 



The avifauna of these counties includes about 116 breeding 

 species, among the most notable of which are the Golden Eagle, 

 Peregrine, Hen Harrier, Ptarmigan, Greylag Goose, Common 

 Scoter, Goosander, and two species of Diver. The White-tailed 

 Eagle, formerly abundant, has dwindled in numbers of late years, 

 no less on the mainland than in the Hebrides, but the Golden 



