August i 2, 1922] 



NA TURE 



209 



and the more fundamental methods of chemical analysis. 

 No description is given of a modern type of calcimeter 

 such as that of Collin's, but only of the two Passon's 

 calcimeters in which the sources of error still remain. 

 Again, ecologists might reasonably hope to find in 

 t hese pages an account of either the electrical or colori- 

 metric methods for determining the hydrogen-ion 

 concentration of soil solutions, or of the colorimetric 

 determination of nitrates. 



It is particularly in respect to physical and chemical 

 methods, of which the details are often widely scattered 

 in non-botanical literature, that the biological investiga- 

 tor needs most guidance. The elucidation of ecological 

 problems is becoming every day more a question of the 

 investigation of the chemical and physical properties 

 of the environment as they affect the different species 

 directly, and their relationships to one another. 



The second part of the volume is devoted to a 

 consideration of the plant community, and is a helpful 

 summary of the recent work on the extensive side of 

 the subject. Here are dealt with such aspects as 

 frequency and the methods of its determination, the 

 occurrence of " constants " and characteristic species, 

 the life forms of plants as classified by Raunkaier, the 

 chief plant formations and the important subject of 

 cartography. 



Prof. Rubel's considerable experience in the Swiss 

 Survey lends especial value to his pertinent discussions 

 of tin- various statistical methods. The results so 

 obtained are often by no means free from the personal 

 equation, and hence often have a spurious appearance 

 of accuracy to which attention is rightly drawn. The 

 classification of plant formations is, in essentials, that 

 put forward by Brockman and Riibel in 1912, based 

 largely on the physiognomy of the dominant species. 

 The chief change is the creation of a new class termed 

 Saxideserta for stony deserts in which cryptogamic 

 vegetation predominates. 



Ecology, from the very complexity of the problems 

 with which it deals, must cull its methods from all 

 branches of science, and if we have criticised omissions 

 it is not without a due appreciation of the magnitude 

 of the author's task and of the encyclopaedic knowledge 

 requisite to its ideal performance. 



E. J. Salisbury. 



Avian Minstrelsy. 



Songs of the Birds. By Prof. Walter Garstang. Pp. 

 101. (London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 

 Ltd., 1922). 6s. net. 



IX his " Songs of the Birds " Prof. Garstang has 

 given us an unusual but agreeable mixture of 

 and verse. His introductory essay on avian 

 NO. 2754, VOL. I lo] 



song is a contribution to the science of the subject 

 which deserves serious consideration. His attempts 

 to set down on paper representations of the songs of 

 different species are also interesting, although opinions 

 will probably differ as to whether he has greatly suc- 

 ceeded where others have failed. Finally, there are 

 the author's own verses about the songsters, often 

 incorporating his representations of their own music ; 

 but these, together with the little sketches from Mr. 

 J. A. Shepherd's humorous pencil, scarcely fall within 

 the scope of a notice in these pages. 



Prof. Garstang starts from the assumption that 

 " birds are not automatic musical boxes, but sound- 

 lovers, who cultivate the pursuit of sound combinations 

 as an art, as truly as we have cultivated our arts of a 

 similarly aesthetic character. This art becomes to 

 many of them a real object of life, no less real than the 

 pursuit of food or the maintenance of a family." He 

 also, following Warde Fowler, places bird song on the 

 aesthetic level of the rude music of primitive man. 

 The songs of birds, he tells us, " are in each generation 

 an expression of the whole joy of life at its climax of 

 achievement and well being," and he holds that it is 

 wrong to regard them as essentially love lyrics. These 

 views are a welcome reaction from the too mechanical 

 conceptions that are common, but there is at the same 

 time some danger of their leading towards too anthropo- 

 morphic ways of thinking. 



Much ingenuity has been expended at various times, 

 and with indifferent success, on the attempt to trans- 

 late birds' songs into human speech or musical notation. 

 Prof. Garstang obviously approaches this vexed ques- 

 tion with a knowledge of music and a sense of poetry, 

 and his endeavours to place the matter on a firmer 

 footing are, at the least, interesting and instructive. 

 As " the bird is a minstrel, not a musician," and as 

 " timbre and resonance, rather than musical pitch, 

 constitute the dominating features of a bird's sounds," 

 the author has adopted a syllabic notation. His view 

 is that " the secret of representation lies not in punctili- 

 ous imitation of every sound (which is unattainable), 

 but in accuracy of phrasing combined with a fair 

 approximation to the succession of dominant vowels 

 and consonants." As we have said, however, opinions 

 are likely to differ as to whether the question is really 

 solved, for the personal factor enters so largely into 

 both the hearing of the songs themselves and the reading 

 of the written symbols. The reader who has an ear may 

 thus best judge for himself whether a useful advance 

 in the means of studying and describing bird music has 

 been achieved by such examples as the following 

 representation of the sung of the willow-warbler : 



Sip, sip, sip, see ! Tee, tew, wee, tew ! 

 Witty, witty, wee-wee, weetew ! 



