iloofe i^etos and l^ebietDS 



British Birds' Nests, How, Where, and 

 When to Find and Identify Them. By 

 R. Kearton, F. Z. S. , with an Introduc- 

 tion by R. BowDLER Sharpe, LL.D. 

 Illustrated from photographs by C. 

 Kearton. Cassell & Co Ltd. London, 

 Paris, New York and Melbourne. 1898. 

 8vo, pp. XX -p 368. Numerous half- 

 tones. 



Our Rarer British Breeding Birds. 

 Their Nests, Eggs and Summer 

 Haunts. By Richard Kearton, F. Z.S. 

 Illustrated from photographs by C. 

 Kearton. Cassell & Co. Ltd. London, 

 Paris, New York and Melbourne, 1899. 

 8vo, pp. xvi -|- 149. Numerous half- 

 tones. 



In the first of these volumes, under an 

 alphabetical arrangement, the authors de- 

 scribe and present photographs from na- 

 ture of the nests of the British birds with 

 whose breeding habits they were familiar 

 at the time of its publication. In the sec- 

 ond volume are included pictures of the 

 nests, eggs or breeding haunts of nearly 

 sixty species not pictorially represented in 

 their earlier work, in the gathering of 

 which the authors' journeys in England, 

 Scotland, Ireland and Wales, footed up a 

 total of about 10,000 miles. 



The second work is, therefore, virtually 

 a supplement to the first, and the two to- 

 gether constitute a practically complete 

 guide to the subject of which they treat. 

 The amount of labor involved in securing 

 the material for these books can be appre- 

 ciated only by the experienced ; but that 

 it is justified by the results must be ad- 

 mitted by everyone who compares these 

 actual representations of the breeding 

 haunts, nesting-sites, nests and eggs them- 

 selves, with the stereotyped phraseology 

 and often execrably colored lithographs of 

 egg-shells of the older oologies. 



In their later volume the authors write 

 from a broad experience of the need and 

 methods of bird protection ; and in nu- 

 merous instances do not mention the lo- 

 calities in which they have found certain 



dabchick s nest uncovered 



rare species breeding, for fear they will be 

 exterminated by egg collectors. What 

 a comment on the greed of the average 

 oologist ! — F. M. C. 



(91) 



