May 2 1, I 



NA TURE 



59 



We next come to notice two local faunas. The first of 

 which is Mrs. Hugh Blackburn's "Birds from Moidart 

 and Elsewhere." The authoress is a well-known artist, 

 and the volume before us is not so much a systematic 

 avi-fauna of the region in which she resides, as a series 

 of drawings from nature, all of them artistic, vigorous, 

 and true to life, of such birds as she has known person- 

 ally, " to which are added," as she tells us in the preface, 

 "simply, and I trust truthfully, a few observations which 

 I have had the opportunity of making on their life and 

 habits.'' Her sketch of the young and callow cuckoo 

 ejecting the rightful meadow pipits from their nest, is the 

 original illustration of this most interesting fact, which, 

 first made known by Henry Jenner in 1788, and long 

 rejected as apocryphal, was in 1871 re-described, and still 

 more fully established in 1872, when it was sketched 

 from actual observation by Mrs. Hugh Blackburn. Her 

 plates illustrating the habits of many species not to be 

 observed everywhere, such as " Solan-geese fishing," 

 " Cormorants feeding their young," " Osprey carrying a 

 fish," are of real scientific interest and value. So also 

 are the sketches of the nestlings of several birds whose 

 breeding-places are chosen in out-of-the-way corners, 

 whither our artist seems to have followed them. Mrs. 

 Blackburn states the interesting facts that in 1856 

 there were no starlings in Moidart, where they are now 

 plentiful, and not for many years after were there any 

 common sparrows. On the advent of the latter, however, 

 the yellow-hammers, " which used to be very common," 

 began to decrease rapidly. She records also, on the 

 faith of a correspondent, that a nightingale was heard for 

 three weeks, and also seen during the month of June 

 1SS9, "at Achnacai")'," which, if the observation can be 

 depended on, is a far cry beyond its usual northern limit. 

 On turning to Dr. Sharpe's and Mr. Hudson's \olunies, 

 noticed above, we find it recorded that in Scotland and 

 Ireland the nightingale is unknown. (I) 



"The Birds of Berwickshire," by Mr. George Muir- 

 head, of which the first volume was published in 1889, 

 and the second in 1895, contains a full account of every 

 bird known to occur in that extensive shire. The work, 

 published by David Douglas, of Edinburgh, is printed on 

 special paper, and on its pages space and variety of 

 type have been generously lavished. Each bird's history 

 is concluded by a charming pen-and-ink etching of 

 its nest, of one of its favourite haunts, or of some 

 interesting, historical, or beautiful Berwickshire "bit," 

 which has more or less direct reference to the subject of 

 the chapter. There are, in addition, several full-page 

 etchings by .Scottish .Academicians, and an excellent 

 map of the county. Altogether, therefore, no expense 

 has been spared (as is wont with the publishing house 

 of David Douglas; to produce a work worthy of its pre- 

 decessors in their sumptuous Natural History Library. 

 And although these volumes can but record few new facts 

 about the birds described in them except what is of 

 local distributional interest, they are full of folk-lore, pro- 

 verbs, popular rhymes and sayings about them, which 

 must ensure the book being greedily desired as a prized 

 addition to his \olumes de lu.xc, not only by every lover 

 of birds and their haunts, but by all who treasure dainty 

 books. 



The three volumes next on our list follow much the 

 same lines as those above noticed, only they deal with 

 .•\merican instead of British birds. "North American 

 .Shore Birds," by D. G. Elliott, who is well known by his 

 numerous magnificent scientific monographs, " is a 

 ])opular work and in no sense a scientific treatise," as 

 the preface informs us. Its object is to enable the 

 sportsman and those who love to study birds in their 

 haunts, to know and recognise those they shoot or 

 observe on the wing. "The accounts of their habits 

 have been written, to the best of the author's ability, in 

 anguage ' understanded of the peojile.' " Mr. Elliott 



NO. 1386, VOL. 54] 



will, we have no doubt, be fully successful in his object, 

 for his book cannot fail to satisfy both those classes ; and 

 we are confident it will be their frequent companion, both 

 "in the open" and in the study. The volume is not a 

 mere compilation, for the record of the habits of most of 

 the species are derived from the author's own experience 

 in the many hunting excursions he has undertaken from 

 arctic Alaska all over the North-American continent, 

 and as far south as Rio de Janeiro. Nearly every species 

 described in the book is illustrated by a full-page plate in 

 black-and-white from drawings of great beauty by Edwin 

 Sheppard, of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 " an artist possessing e.xceptional talent for portraying 

 birds and bird-life." 



Mr. Mcllwraith, in his " Birds of Ontario," enumerates 

 317 species, which he believes to be the complete tale of 

 the birds occurring in the province of his domicile. A 

 short, but sufficient, account is given of their plumage, 

 their rang-e, their distribution in Ontario, and, as they are 

 nearly all migatory, of where they spend the breeding 

 season, as well as of their nests and eggs. In the 

 introduction full instructions are provided for the young 

 collector how to obtain and preserve his specimens. 



In " Birdcraft," Mabel Osgood Wright describes and 

 illustrates two hundred song, game, and water birds of 

 North America. Her book is written for the young, in 

 whom she wishes to encourage the study of " the living 

 bird in his love songs, his house-building instincts, and 

 his migrations," to discourage in them the "greed of 

 possession" of the skin, nest and eggs of her feathered 

 friends, and to enable them to identify and properly 

 name the species they may observe in their excursions. 

 To her disciples — may they be many I — she gives this ex- 

 cellent advice: "Take with you three things, a keen 

 eye, a quick ear, and loving patience " ; but leave to " the 

 practised hand of science," " the gun that silences the 

 bird- voice, and the looting of nests." The authoress, 

 who is herself, apparently, a keen and sympathetic 

 observer of nature, believes that all the lover of birds 

 wishes to know of their forms closer at hand, on his 

 return from the field, should be sought for, and will be 

 found, in those "great picture-books" — the museums. 

 " Birdcraft " should form an excellent guide to the young 

 American field-naturalist. Unfortunately the chromo- 

 lithograph plates, on which eight to ten species, varying 

 greatly in colour and size, are crowded, leave much to be 

 desired. A " key to the birds " is provided at the 

 end of the book, by which {a) land birds, {b) birds of 

 prey, and (c) game, shore and water birds may be 

 identified by their predominant colours. 



The " Life-History Groups of Birds " in the Gros\enor 

 Museum, Chester, most of which have been mounted by 

 the Curator, Mr. Newstead, have been photographed 

 "in life-like attitudes" with the "natural surroundings 

 proper to the particular specimens," by Mr. G. W. Webster 

 of the same city, and offered to the public in a handsome 

 volume. It is hoped by the authors that these pictures 

 " will appeal to curators and museum authorities, to all 

 lovers of birds and nature, and to artists." To curators 

 of museums they may on occasion afford suggestions ; 

 but as they are a class who strongly object to imitate 

 slavishly the methods of even the greatest of their 

 colleagues, they will probably prefer to seek inspir- 

 ation from the same source as Mr. Newstead. 

 To artists and lovers of birds we have no doubt 

 these platinotypes will afford a great deal of pleasure, 

 and in the case of the former they will be extremely 

 useful as models. The weight of the volume and its 

 high price (necessary from the costliness of its get- 

 up) will, however, we fear, militate against a wide 

 circulation, and certainly against its use for frequent and 

 comfortable reference. 



The fourth volume of the " Royal Natural History," 

 edited by R. Lydekker, F.R.S., completes the acc ount of 



