July 22, 1909 J 



NA TURE 



99 



Musical Sands. 



In an interesting: letter Mr. Carus-Wilson gives us tlie 

 results (Nature, July 15) of further observations made by 

 him on a phenomenon on w^hich he has written from time 

 to time. 1 believe I have suggested to him in years gone 

 by — if not, perhaps you will allow me to suggest now — the 

 possibility of the musical ring of certain sands in motion 

 being due to their consisting largely of grains of hyaline 

 quartz. That fact, if ascertained, would account for the 

 ring of the grains in motion, while the smoothness of their 

 glassy surfaces would facilitate their motion, and so 

 increase the force of their mutual impact, tending to raise 

 the pitch of the note produced. I have never had an 

 opportunity myself of making a microscopic examination 

 of such sands, but I venture to commend such an examina- 

 tion to Mr. Carus-Wilson 's consideration. The assort- 

 ment of the sands by the wind into possibly more rounded 

 and more angular grains mav also throw some light upon 

 the matter. ' A. Irving. 



Bishop's Stortford, July 19. 



Wych Elm Seedlings. 



The prolific flowering of the Wych elm, Uhmis ino)itana, 

 this year must have been followed by the formation of 

 unusual numbers of fertile seeds. At present the ground 

 beneath these elms in my garden is covered with hundreds 

 of their seedlings, many of which have already developed 

 a second pair of serrated leaves. 



The elms themselves seem to have suffered from the 

 strain of producing so large a crop of fruits, for their 

 leaves, though now of the usual size, were very late in 

 appearing, and arc sparsely distributed on the branches. 



Rosamond F. Shove. 



26 Blessington Road, Lee, Kent, July 13. 



POPULAR NATURAL HISTORY. 



MR. LEA'S "Romance of Bird-life," ' a handy and 

 fully illustrated volume published at a marvel- 

 lously low price, covers the whole life-history of the 

 bird, from" the egg upwards, the twenty-one chapters 

 containing a summary of the observations of a great 

 many writers on ornithology arranged in a masterly 

 and most attractive form. One of the concluding 

 chapters deals with the birds of the past and vanish- 

 ing species, and is illustrated with a reproduction of a 

 curious old wood-cut published in 1601, representing 

 early voyagers knocking down dodos and other birds 

 with sticks on the island of Mauritius. In that upon 

 " Wisdom and Folly " we have anecdotes bearing on 

 the intellectual capacity of birds. There are many 

 instructive passages in the book, which is quite a 

 mine of information. It is stated that in more than 

 one instance, if when a chick was cheepinj:: 

 while still in the shell the mother uttered a note of 

 warning, the cheeping stopped instantly ; and it is 

 pointed out that this teaches us that the simple 

 language of call-notes is instinctive, for the chick 

 cannot possibly have learnt their meaning by experi- 

 ence. Nestlings the food of which is placed in their 

 mouths by their parents cannot be taught to pick it up 

 from the ground like chicks until they are much older. 

 Young moorhens, however, which are fed from their 

 mother's beak at first, will peck upwards at anything 

 that is offered to them, but not downwards. So far 

 as the author is aware the frigate bird is the only 

 species which ever carries on fishing in mid-air, wait- 

 ing until the flying-fish are startled from the sea by 

 some large fish which preys on them below the sur- 



1 " The Romance of Bird Life." Bein^ an Account of the Education, 

 Courtship, Sport and Play. Tourneys, Fishing, Fighting. Piracy, Domestic 

 and Social Habits, Instinct. Strane:e Friendships and other inlerevtin^ 

 Aspects of the Life of r.irds," By John Lea. Pp. 376; illuslrated- 

 (London : .Seeley and Co., Ltd., 1009.) Price 5s. 



NO. 2073, VOL. 81] 



face ; other fishing birds follow them into the water. 

 The romantic story of the ospreys at loch-en-eilein 

 (which should be written eileanj is told and illustrated. 

 Possibly the " romance " is a little overstrained in 

 places, and ordinary incidents in a bird's general life 

 habits sometimes magnified or transfigured into some- 

 thing more wonderful. For instance, it is a common 

 custom with snow buntings (and with some other 

 quick-footed birds which feed in flocks) for the rear 

 ranks to fly to the front over the backs of the others, a 

 manoeuvre repeated by the others in turn. This simple 

 desire (and its e.xpression) to have first turn at what- 

 ever food is going is here advanced as " a boisterous 

 little game of their own " in the section on sport and 

 play. The combats of ruffs are much milder and 

 much less important affairs than is here represented; 

 and it seems really unlikely that nuthatches could 

 drive out squirrels from their nest, or would want 

 to take possession of it. Unlilte most of the popular 

 bird books published in recent years this one fills a 

 vacant place. 



Almost anyone seems to feel capable nowadays 

 of writing a book on British 'birds, and, in good 

 truth, there is material enough to compile from. 

 Time was when to write an account of British birds 

 was an undertaking attempted by few, and those only 

 who had made the subject their main study for many 

 years, and were on all hands accounted authorities. 

 Now almost anyone does it, and there is a perfect 

 stream of books on this subject. They come out so 

 frequently that, although the title has been turned and 

 twisted in a great variety of ways, it has even been 

 found impossible to discover fresh and original names 

 to distinguish them by. Most of them put forward 

 some special claim upon the public. Many of them 

 purport to cater for the ignorant and the beginner; 

 one, indeed, made a point of picking brains without 

 acknowledgment. Here is one ^ " with a new method 

 of identification." This book has been written with 

 the exclusively practical object of enabling persons uii- 

 acquainted with British birds to identify them by their 

 most obvious characteristics. By the grouping of 

 birds, as here carried out, under such headings as 

 " Black-and-VVhite Birds," " Ruddy-breasted Birds," 

 "Trunk-climbing Birds," it is claimed that the birds 

 are presented to the beginner as he himself sees them. 

 Where necessary, notes are appended to the descrip- 

 tions indicating those birds with which the one 

 described is most likely to be confounded, and the 

 chief characteristics by which it is to be distinguished 

 from them. Before proceeding to observe birds, how- 

 ever, the user of this book need do no more than read 

 through the list of group-headings. The book is, in 

 fact, another attempt at a royal road to a knowledge 

 of our birds. The idea has been tried over and over 

 again in some shape or form, both here and in 

 America, but we do not think it will ever be suc- 

 cessful. In the present case the difficulties of group- 

 ing begin to be apparent very shortly. " Skuas" as 

 a group heading will convey nothing to the beginner 

 without good pictures. In the end the author is left 

 with three birds, the jay, the goldfinch, and the white 

 wagtail, which do not fall into any groups. The two 

 first are so conspicuous that perhaps they do not want 

 grouping; but, really, after some of the grouping, 

 e.g. putting the hedge sparrow and some others among 

 those which are "brown above and white below," it 

 seems rather like straining at a gnat not to have 

 dropped the third in among the black-and-white birds. 

 We are glad to read that there are a few breeding 

 pairs of kites in the Midlands of England, and hope 



t " P.ritish Birds and their Eggs, with a New Method of Identification." 

 By T. Maclair Boraston. Pp. x + 301 ; 136 coloured illustrations, (London 

 andEdinburgh ; W. and R. Chambers, 1909.) Price 6s. net. 



