3^5 

 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 



Bird-Life of the Borders. By Abel Chai'MAN. Gurney and Jackson. 



In ' Bird-Life of the Borders' we have another of those charming 

 volumes which relate the experiences and observations of the sports- 

 man and naturalist. Many years of wandering on the hills, moors, 

 and mosses of the Borderland, and wild-fowl shooting on the bleak 

 and exposed north-east coast of Northumberland, have given 

 Mr. Chapman ample opportunity of noting the wild creatures 

 resident and migratory still to be found in one of the best faunal 

 areas in Great Britain, and he has — unlike so many who go through 

 the world with their eyes shut — evidently made use of his chances, 

 the result being these pleasant and original chapters, written in the 

 best style, and the perusal of which must be delightful to every true 

 lover of nature. 



The late Bishop Wilberforce in one of his admirable essays has 

 said that ' a good practical naturalist must be a good observer, and 

 how many qualities are required to make up a good observer ! 

 Attention, patience, quickness to seize separate facts, discrimination 

 to keep them unconfused, readiness to combine them, and rapidity 

 and yet slowness of deduction ; above all, perfect fidelity, which 

 can be seduced neither by the enticements of a favourite theory, nor 

 by the temptation to see a little more than actually happens in some 

 passing drama.' These qualities our author seems to combine in a 

 high degree. Mr. Chapman defines the district of which he writes 

 as 'the mountain -region which remains unaltered by the hand of 

 man — the land " in God's own holding " — bounded by the line 

 where the shepherd's crook supplants the plough ; and heather and 

 bracken, whinstone, and black-faced sheep replace corn, cattle, and 

 cultivation ; where the Pheasant gives way to the Grouse, and the 

 Ring-ousel dispossesses the Blackbird ; the region of peat dis- 

 tinguished from soil, of flower, moss and crag, of tumbling burn and 

 lonely moorland, clad in all the pristine beauty of creation.' 



In many pleasant chapters the author conducts us through the 

 natural sequences of bird-life in the hills, from the arrival of Golden 

 Plovers early in the year, to the dull dark days of December, when 

 the great tide of autumnal migration has run itself down, and the 

 actors in it have settled into permanent winter quarters. 



In February, the Golden Plover and the Curlew return, there 

 is the vernal influx of Skylarks, varying in date according to 

 the character of the season, and a few Pied Wagtails also put in an 

 appearance. Early in March, the Mallard and Teal return, and 

 Ravens have commenced nesting. Titlarks appear on the moors 

 and there is a visible accession to the numbers of the Grey Wagtail ; 



Oct. iS8g. 



