Some Recent Nate Bostks | DG 
Berlin, Hamburg (Zoologischer Garten and Hagenbeck’s Park), Amsterdam, The Hague, 
Rotterdam, and Antwerp. 4 
Mr. Finn, like Mr. Peel, is another of our contributors, and we gladly notice a small 
book of his published by Messrs. Thacker in India, entitled “The Birds of Calcutta.” 
This consists of 24 articles reprinted from “The Asian.” All these are popularly 
written, and contain sufficient scientific data to please the zoologist without annoying 
the naturalist. We should lke to see these mteresting articles in a more pretentious 
and permanent form than a small paper-covered pamphlet; perhaps some day Mr. Finn 
will see his way to write a bigger book on the birds of India, with illustrations. 
Apropos of a recent anecdote in this magazine on the crow’s intelligence we may quote 
the following from the first chapter in Mr. Finn’s book, as it bears out our own story: 
“With a dog,’ he writes, “they will go so far, I am told, as to tell off one of the 
fraternity to pull his tail when he is engaged with a bone, so that when the aggrieved 
canine turns round to snap, those in front can make off with his dinner. And this I 
can readily believe, as I have seen exactly the same trick played or attempted on a kite 
more than once; the crows in the last cases I have observed seemed undoubtedly to be 
pairs, which accounts for their working together so well. No doubt the female does 
the tail-pulling, while the male takes the post of danger in front; in one instance I made 
sure of this from the forbearing behaviour of the crow which had snatched the bone 
of contention, which he was able to do before any tail-pulling had taken place.” 
We have kept to the last, three books of Mr. Walter 5S. Long for mention, on 
the principle of last but not least, or, 
rather, last and best. In our opinion 
Mr. Long as a true naturalist is second 
only to Mr. Krnest Seton (Thompson), 
another American who needs no intro- 
duction to lovers of animals and 
animal life. Mr. Long is a real student 
of nature; he loves to watch animals 
in their native haunts, to become one 
of them, and to make his readers 
share the pleasure he himself gets out 
of them. No one who wishes to 
form a zoological library can afford 
to omit Mr. Long’s books from its 
shelves; the three we refer to are : Le ex 
“School of the Woods,’ “Beasts of 3 
the Field,’ and “Fowls of the Aw,” 
all published by Messrs. Ginn & Co. 
The two latter are “handsome editions 
of chapters reprinted and embellished 
with additional illustrations from 
“Secrets of the Woods,’ ‘ Ways 
of Wood Folk,’ and “ Wilderness 
Ways.” The former is entirely new 
matter. 
The reduced illustration here 
given aS a specimen of those in 
that book relates to an encounter 
with a bear which the author 
experienced one day on his return 
**At a turn in the path not ten yards ahead stood a huge bear.” 
