238 News from the Magazines. 
and Thrushes can increase and multiply, the more tender 
varieties such as Redstarts, Wheatears, Whinchats, Pipits and 
the various Warblers can no longer find a sufficient supply 
of suitable food within our borders. But however much we 
may theorize on the subject it is quite certain that we cannot 
account for many changes in the distribution of birds with 
which we are all familiar. Why, for instance, should the 
Goldfinch become more numerous while the Yellow Hammer 
apparently the most robust species of the two, seems to be 
decreasing in numbers, or what reason can we give for the 
enormous increase in the number of Starlings during the last 
century ? After all, Ornithology, the most attractive of all 
sciences, would lose half its interest if we could account for all 
the mysteries with which we meet in its pursuit. 


BOs 
In The Entomologist for June Mr. Claude Morley includes some northern 
records in his ‘ Notes on Braconide.’ 
Mr. T. A. Coward records the Long-tailed Skua in Lancashire on May 
15th, in The Lancashive Naturalist for May. 
An excellent account of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, 
London, by C. J. S. Thompson, appears in The Museums Journal for May. 
In British Birds for June, J. H. Owen has an admirably illustrated 
article on ‘ The Effect of Rain on the Breeding Habits of the Sparrow- 
Hawk.’ 
The Irish Naturalist for May appears late owing to the fact that when 
about ready for the press the type was destroyed by the fires following 
the rebellion in Dublin during Easter week. 
In The Geological Magazine for May Dr. W. Wingrave describes what 
he considers to be a new variety of Ammonite C@locevas Dave@i (Davai on 
the plate: both should be dav@i) as variety rectivadiatum. It is from the 
Lower Lias, Dorset. 
Wild Life for May contains the following papers :—‘ Carrion Crows,’ 
by Edwin Wood; ‘A Mallard Incident,’ by Jasper Atkinson; ‘ The 
Dormouse,’ by Lionel E. Adams; ‘ Wasps,’ by David Arthur; and 
‘ The Spring Habits of the Stone Curlew,’ by Edmund Selous, They are 
well illustrated. 
The New Phytologist, “Double Number, Vol. XV., Nos. 3 and 4, 
March and April, 1916. Published May 28th,’ (help !).contains, ‘ The 
Vegetative Anatomy of Molinia cerulea, the Purple Heath Grass,’ by 
T. A.- Jefferies, and ‘The Vascular Anatomy of the Tubers of Nephrolepis,’ 
by Birbal Sahni. 
In The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine for June, Mr. J. W. H. 
Harrison ‘writes on ‘The Geographical Distribution of Dimorpha { En- 
drvomts) versicolova, L. and what it suggests.’ In this he suggests that the 
species ‘ was driven far to the East during the Glacial Period, whence 
it advanced during favourable inter-glacial periods. . . . The bulk of 
the present habitats of European forms were reached during the last 
inter-glacial period.’ The theory may be all right for the followers of 
James Geikie, who think there have been various and numerous inter- 
elacial periods, but it is a bit awkward for the new school of glacialists— 
Wright, Lamplugh, Kendall and others, who think, and we believe 
correctly, that there was but one Ice-age, and therefore no inter-glacial 
periods. oe 
Naturalist, 
