BihliograpMcal Notices. Q^ 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



The Birds of Lancashire. By F. S, Mitchell. 

 Post 8vo. London : Van Voorst, 1885. 



We hail the appearance of Mr. P. S. Mitchell's neat and exhaustive 

 little handbook on ' The Birds of Lancashire ' with great pleasure. 

 Previous to the issue of this work we possessed no standard infor- 

 mation of any kind in a collective form respecting the avifauna of 

 the vast district lying between the Bristol Channel and the Solway 

 Firth. This hiatus is keenly felt by those naturalists who have 

 occasion to work out the distribution of birds in the British Islands. 

 The west of England and the whole of Wales have been much 

 neglected by the " local naturalists ; " but we hope that the careful 

 observations made by Mr. Mitchell wiU prove contagious, and that 

 his useful handbook will be followed by similar works dealing with 

 the other western counties, until the birds are as well known and 

 their distribution as accurately determined as in the eastern 

 counties. Without aspiring to the pretensions of such works as 

 Stevenson's ' Birds of Norfolk ' or Gray's ' Birds of the West of 

 Scotland,' Mr. Mitchell's handbook supplies us with much informa- 

 tion which we fail to find in those more elaborate works. We 

 allude to the careful way in which the time of arrival and the 

 date at which each species lays its eggs is given — information which 

 will be of the highest service to many a young naturalist in the 

 northern counties. Nor will the numerous local names of birds be 

 less welcome to many readers. Much valuable information is given 

 respecting the occurrence of wild fowl on the coasts of a county 

 eminently suited to the requirements of such birds, which the shore- 

 shooter wiU do well to study ; and many " straight tips " and quiet 

 hints are given respecting the modes by which they are captured ; 

 whilst a considerable amount of interesting archseologieal informa- 

 tion is incorporated. The charming woodcuts by Whymper of the 

 " decoy pipes," showing the method by which the wary ducks are 

 lured to their doom, are exceptionally realistic. In addition to 

 numerous woodcuts the work is embellished by two beautiful 

 coloured plates by Keulemans, one of the Black-throated Wheatear 

 (a bird which has hitherto only been met with in the United King- 

 dom in Lancashire), and the other of the Wall-Creeper. Several 

 occurrences of rare birds in the British Islands are here recorded 

 apparently for the first time ; and not a few interesting particulars 

 are given concerning the habits of many species. We must doubt, 

 however, the correctness of Mr. Mitchell's assertion that the Star- 

 ling is only single-brooded — in the adjoining county of York it 

 certainly rears two, if not three, broods in the season. Lancashire 

 compares most favourably with other counties with regard to its 

 avifauna, which we are told numbers 256 species. No less than 

 116 of these are given as breeding within the limits of the county, 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser, 5. Vol. xvi. 5 



