351 

 SAUNDERS' MANUAL OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



An Illustrated Manual of British Birds. l>y IIowaku Saunders, 

 F.L.S., F.Z.S. 8vo., pp. xl., 754; with ilhistralions of nearly every 

 species. London : Gurney and Jackson, Paternoster Row, 1888-89. 



Those who may desire to possess a thoroughly reliable, handy 

 and convenient book of reference cannot do better than obtain 

 a copy of Mr. Howard Saunders' ' Manual of British Birds.' The 

 greatest possible praise is due to our author for having successfully 

 brought together, and condensed with so much pains and labour, 

 within the short space of exactly two pages (including the engraving), 

 so much information, to date, in connection with the 367 birds, 

 considered by him as fairly entitled to be included in the British list, 

 and we think a very wise discretion has been exercised in omitting 

 certain New World Passeres which labour under the suspicion of 

 having reached our shores with an assisted passage. 



Considering the excellence of the work as a whole, and the 

 immense amount of material worked up, the comparatively low price, 

 putting it within reach of all classes, at which it has been brought 

 out is remarkable. This is probably due to the fact that the 

 publishers own the blocks which were originally used for the illustra- 

 tion of the four editions of Yarrell's British Birds. Several entirely 

 new wood-cuts, of recent additions to the British avi-fauna, now 

 appear for the first time in the present Manual, these being the 

 Isabel line. Black-throated and Desert Wheatears, the Barred Warbler, 

 Wall-creeper, Needle-tailed Swift, Lesser Kestrel, Kildeer and 

 Sociable Plovers, and Mediterranean Black-headed Gull ; while new 

 and improved engravings take the place of those of the Marsh 

 Harrier, Goshawk, Merlin, and Great Auk. 



The scientific arrangement and sequence mainly agrees with 

 that already adopted by a Committee of the British Ornithologists' 

 Union, in their list of British Birds published m 1883, and in the 

 introduction to the volume the author has given a synopsis of genera, 

 which occupies about thirty pages of closely printed matter; this will 

 be found of great use in assisting the student to ascertain the class 

 to which any bird belongs, the species being then readily diagnosed 

 by a reference to the text. The only fault we have to this systematic 

 sketch is that there appears to be an unnecessary multiplication of 

 genera, where, as in some cases, the special distinctions are so slight 

 as to scarcely warrant separation. 



We are glad to find that so much space has been given to 

 geographical range ; this is a subject which is daily growing in 

 importance, so closely connected is it with some of those higher 

 scientific problems relating to the original dispersion of birds over the 



Nov. i8qo. 



