Recently published Ornithological Works. 143 



these birds perform, should be regarded as beneficent, 

 and not otherwise. Further, it is to be remembered that 

 these birds feed largely on species which are themselves 

 piscivorous. But more than all, it must not be forgotten 

 that man himself wastes more than he eats. Every year 

 thousands of tons of fish are condemned as unfit for human 

 food in Billingsgate and other large markets. And it is 

 no uncommon thing for a whole cargo to be jettisoned 

 because it will not pay to land the catch. But our waste- 

 fulness does not end here ; the system of trawling now in 

 vogue entails the destruction of incalculable quantities of 

 spawn and young fish, to say nothing of the ruin wrought 

 on the breeding-grounds by the destruction of other forms 

 of life on which fishes feed. One of the fishery boards in 

 the south of England is now pursuing this policy of stupidity 

 in regard to the Cormorant, by offering a reward of one 

 shilling a head for each bird killed. A like war was waged 

 a few years ago on the Cormorants on the Murray Biver, 

 and with disastrous results to the fishing which was to 

 benefit by this slaughter of the innocents. It is a bad 

 policy to kill first and investigate afterwards. Mr. Gurney^s 

 comments on this subject are most interesting. 



There are two statements in this fascinating book on 

 which more evidence is desirable. On page 97 we are told 

 that in winter " Gannets are often on the wing for forty or 

 fifty hours at a stretch, without alighting to rest on the 

 water . . . ." What evidence is there for this estimate ? 

 In a most interesting chapter on the ages of birds Mr. 

 Gurney suggests that the Gannet may live as long as a 

 hundred and fifty years, and in his preface he even extends 

 this period to " two or three hundred years.'^ His inference 

 that the Gannet^s viability is great is sound, but it is surely 

 somewhat overestimated. 



Apart from the sterling merits of this work, it is hand- 

 somely presented and beautifully illustrated, and this being 

 so we marvel at the miserable travesty of a Gannet in flight 

 which is stamped upon the cover ; it does not even gain 

 merit by its sheath of gold ! W. P. P. 



