NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 435 



collected will be generally admitted ; for we learn with regret, 

 that some of the native species are already dying out, while 

 others are being gradually driven further and further from 

 observation by the steady advance of colonization, with all the 

 attendant evils which threaten the extinction of a native fauna 

 and flora. It appears to be the fact that in parts of New Zea- 

 land, one may now live for weeks and months without seeing a 

 single example of its indigenous birds, all of which, in the more 

 settled districts, have been supplanted by the aliens that have 

 been imported ; * while further inland these last are daily 

 extending their range at the cost of the endemic forms. 



Professor Newton, in his Address to the Biological Section of 

 the British Association at Manchester in 1887, put the case very 

 well when he stated that these indigenous species are, with 

 scarcely an exception, peculiar to the country, and from every 

 scientific point of view are of the most instructive character. 

 " They supply (as he says) a link with the past, that once lost 

 can never be recovered ; and it is, therefore, incumbent upon us 

 to know all we can about them before they vanish. The forms 

 that we are allowing to be killed off, being almost without 

 exception ancient forms, are just those that will teach us more of 

 the way in which life has spread over the globe than any other 

 recent forms ; and for the sake of posterity, as well as to escape 

 its reproach, we ought to learn all we can about them before 

 they go hence and are no more seen." 



This excellent advice has not been lost upon the author of 

 the present work, who has not only given an admirable description 

 of every bird peculiar to New Zealand, but in an exhaustive 

 Introduction has given a general view of this singular avifauna, 

 both past and present, with clear diagnoses of the genera, 

 accompanied by well-drawn woodcuts of the most important 

 structural characters. 



The first edition of this work (1873) contained descriptions of 

 147 species, and in his ' Manual of the Birds of New Zealand,' 

 prepared at the request of the Colonial Government in 1882, 

 29 more species were added to the list. The present edition 

 does not profess to add many more to the number ; but the 



* The North-Island Thrush, Turnagra hectori, is said to be "rapidly- 

 dying out," while our English Song Thrush is " fast becoming established " 

 (Introduction, p. xliii.). 



