225 
NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
ANOTHER NEW MAGAZINE 
Durinc the past few years we have chronciled the appearance 
of many new magazines. Most have had a meteoric existence 
—came into the world with a great glare, as quickly ‘fizzed out,” 
and left not a wrack behind. Others had a more lingering 
career; but eventually sickened and died. One or two 
still linger, though apparently suffering from ‘ galloping con- 
sumption.” In most cases their fate was evident from the first. 
A few, a very few, seem still healthy. To these last had been 
added ‘ British Birds,’ * which, judging from the first part just 
received, is most likely to be a success. The study of birds in 
recent years has been followed by an enormous number of 
serious students, as well as by a still greater number of 
drivelling dabblers, many of whom evidently consider that to 
buy (or borrow) a field-glass, to spend a week-end spying 
sparrows, and to have excess to a few monographs are the only 
qualifications for writing books and articles to periodicals. 
Page after page of the most blithering piffle are in this way printed. 
In ‘British Birds,’ however, there will be none of this. With 
such capable editors as Messrs. H. F. Witherby and W. P. 
Pycraft we can depend upon having nothing but the best, and 
‘Part I.’ of the new publication certainly is evidence of this. 
AND ITS CONTRIBUTORS. 
The articles it contains are :—‘ Additions to the List of 
British Birds since 1899,’ by Mr. Howard Saunders, ‘A Study 
of the Home Life of the Osprey’ (with three excellent plates), 
by P. H. Bahr, ‘Remarks on the supposed New British Tits 
of the genus Parus,’ by P. L. Sclater, ‘Nesting Habits observed 
abroad of some Rare British Birds,’ by F. C. Selous, as well as 
notes and correspondence by W. Eagle Clarke, J. H. Gurney, 
J. L. Bonhote, and Charles Whymper. 
It cannot be said that there is no room for such a periodical 
as ‘British Birds.’ It will unquestionably do good. And, with 
a possible exception, it will do no harm to its contemporaries. 
BOOMING BEMPTON. = 
It is apparent that the attractions of the Cliffs of Bempton 
and Speeton are at last being recognised in the way they deserve. 
* Vol. I., Pt. 1, June rst. 32 pp., 1/- net. (monthly). © Witherby & Co. 
London. 
1907 July 1. 
