August ii, 1910] 



NATURE 



177 



pose of the kingfisher when hovering over a stream 

 in quest of food, the authors assert that the long 

 axis of its body is placed almost at right angles to 

 the plane of the water. The bird no doubt adopts 

 any attitude which it considers most appropriate to the 

 occasion, but it is not by any means, in the writer's 

 experience, the usual one, which is to hover hawk-like 

 a score or so of feet above the stream, and like it 

 remain perfectly stationary, just as it is represented 

 in the figure bv Harting in his " Recreations of a 

 Naturalist," reproduced in Nature of May 24, 1906. 

 It is pleasant to read that the great crested grebe, one 

 of our handsomest birds, is more numerous in 

 Cheshire than in any other county, from which we 

 may infer that, temptation notwithstanding, 

 plumassiers' agents leave it unmolested. It is well 

 known that this bird covers its eggs on leaving the 

 nest during incubation with a mass of rotting and 

 fermenting nesting material, and our authors seem to 

 assent to the suggestion (of Seebohm) that the 

 material is so placed that through the heat thereby 

 generated incubation during the bird's absence may 

 not be retarded. This idea is rather discounted by the 

 fact that the material used is often neither rotting nor 

 fermenting, and therefore without heat, but consists 

 of fibres of reeds cut off from those within reach of 

 the breeding bird's beak, and freshly teased out by it. 

 The most remarkable bird in the list is .Schlegel's 

 petrel ((Estrelata ncglecta), a wanderer from the 

 antipodes, found dead in a field near Chester. Whence 

 it arrived and how its dead body came where it was 

 found are unexplained mysteries. Cheshire reckons 

 in its reptilian and amphibian fauna the usual small 

 number of forms common to nearly every other county 

 in the country. 



Mr. Johnstone's introduction to the section of the 

 fishes, extending to thirty-nine pages, enters into manv 

 subjects valuable in another relation which seem to u> 

 foreign to the subject of this book, and which few 

 would look for in an inland fauna. The majority of 

 the fishes enumerated can hardly be claimed as be- 

 longing to Cheshire, which has only a snout of se.i- 

 board less than ten miles in extent, faced, besides, with 

 .-I sandbank stretching seaward almost as far as the 

 limits of its territorial waters. Of the 107 species 

 enumerated, fifty-five are "very rare," and many are 

 included on the scantiest authority. The list, for 

 instance, opens with the sunfish, "once recorded from 

 local waters," thereby meaning Southport ! Other 

 notes are: — "No occurrence of the mature fish in 

 strictly Cheshire waters"; "on Welsh side of Dee " ; 

 "docs not occur in territorial waters of Liverpool 

 Bay." Then why insert these species? Those taken 

 "once in Queen's Channel" and in "Crosby 

 Channel " are surely game poached from Lancashire. 

 By what right can species from "off the Mersey 

 banks," "off the estuaries," or "mouth of Dee" be 

 ascribed to Cheshire's "territorial waters"? And if 

 "drifted eggs" of pelagic species detected in water of 

 the bay be sufficient evidence for adding them to the 

 Cheshire fauna, why not include the whole marine 

 fauna of the Irish Sea? This shortcoming, except as 

 we have indicated, detracts little from the unquestion- 

 able value of the major part of Mr. Coward's book. 



Messrs. Witherbv and Co. are to be highly con- 

 gratulated upon the excellence of the work as a com- 

 mercial product. A special word of praise is also due 

 to the illustrations, the majority of thein separate 

 plates on fine-surfaced paper, every one excellent, 

 several of quite charming bits of scenery, all admir- 

 ably photographed and reproduced. Bv the courtesv 

 of the publishers we are enabled to present " Somer- 

 ford Cattle " as an example. 



NO. 2128, VOL. 84] 



ACROSS YUNNAN.' 

 T N the present work the author gives an account of 

 ^ his last journey from the Yangtse to Yunnan-fu, 

 and onward to Haipong and Hong Kong. It is edited 

 by Mrs. Archibald Little, who accompanied him in 

 his travels, and whose personal experiences among 

 the Chinese have been recorded in her published works. 

 The main interest of the volume lies in its bearing 

 upon the great railway just completed, which links 

 up the capital of Yunnan with the French colonial 

 possessions in Cochin-China. The author, in follow- 

 ing the route, points out the engineering difficulties 

 that had to be overcome in building the line. It 

 traverses a rough, mountainous region, alternating 

 with rivers, low-lying, malarious swamps, and stony, 

 sterile wastes, places where work had to be sus- 

 pended owing to outbreaks of fever that thinned the 

 ranks of the labourers. 



The line from Tonking, in a distance of 263 miles, 

 rises 8000 feet to the level of Yunnan-fu, by gradients 

 of 2'5i feet in 100. It was to be opened officially 

 on April i, 1910, and the issue of the book was 

 designed to be coeval with this event "as a tribute to 



Lofty Stone Column, such as are 

 and recall Cornish Crosses. 

 From " Across Yunnan." 



the French enterprise " on which the author touches 

 so often with warm admiration in his pages. While 

 the project of building a British line of communication 

 to Yunnan-fu from Kunlung ferry remained in abey- 

 ance, M. Dormer, the energetic Governor of Cochin- 

 China, pushed forward his scheme, which was 

 at once passed by the French Chamber in 1905, and 

 carried through with a promptitude deserving of all 

 praise. 



The completion of this trade-route involves a new- 

 factor in the problems of international commercial 

 intercourse with western China, the adv'antages which 

 may accrue falling at present to France. There are 

 other existing lines of communication with Yunnan, 

 but no railways, as the west river route, by which, 

 after tedious marches, produce reaches Canton and 

 Hong Kong. There is also that by the Yangtse. Some 



' " Across Yunnan." A Journey of Surprises, including an Account of the 

 Rem.irkable French Railway Line now rompleted to Yunnan-fu. By 

 Archibald Little. Pp. 164. (London ; Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 

 Ltd., 19.0.) Price 3s. net. 



