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Jungle Peace. By William Beebe. 

 Henry Holt & Co., New York. 19 18. 

 8vo. 297 pages; 16 full-page plates from 

 photographs. 



This book is a picture. Its theme is the 

 beauty of the South American jungle as 

 seen by the philosopher-naturalist. It is 

 not a picture of birds, but there are birds 

 in the picture. Of the eleven chapters 

 which comprise it, the central one of seven- 

 teen pages gives a vivid, careful descrip- 

 tion of 'Hoatzins at Home.' 



In the author's words, "The hoatzin is 

 probably the most remarkable and inter- 

 esting bird living on the earth today." The 

 colony of Hoatzins studied was over the 

 edge of a river in "an almost solid line of 

 bunduri pimpler or thorn tree. This was 

 the real home of the birds, and this plant 

 forms the background whenever the 

 hoatzin comes to mind." The methods of 

 the reptile-like young of this bird using the 

 clawed digits at the bend of the wing in 

 climbing, and also of diving into the water 

 beneath to escape capture, are described 

 in detail. 



The student of bird-life in temperate 

 climes will find in the many allusions to 

 birds of the tropics the tang of the unfa- 

 miliar, yet much that parallels and gives 

 fresh meaning to things which he knows 

 well. We are all acquainted with the 

 heterogeneous association of Chickadee, 

 Downy, Nuthatch, Kinglet, etc., which 

 drift through the winter woodland, and 

 read with interest (page 249) "Little 

 assemblages of flycatchers, callistes, tana- 

 gers, antbirds, manakins, woodhewers, and 

 woodpeckers are drawn together by some 

 intangible but very social instinct. Day 

 after day they unite in these fragile fra- 

 ternities which drift along, gleaning from 

 leaves, flowers, branches, trunks, or 

 ground, each bird according to its struc- 

 ture and way of life. They are so held to- 

 gether by an intangible gregarious instinct 

 that day after day the same heterogeneous 

 flock may be observed, identifiable by 



peculiarities of one or several of its mem- 

 bers. The only recognizable bond is 

 vocal — a constant low calling; half-uncon- 

 scious, absent-minded little signals which 

 keep the members in touch with one 

 another, spurring on the laggards, retard- 

 ing the overswift." 



'Jungle Peace' is delightful reading in 

 part or throughout. The thread which 

 binds it together is subtle, perhaps the 

 author s personality, or perhaps the many- 

 sided spirit of the jungle itself. We are 

 told that most of the chapters have ap- 

 peared independently in the Atlantic 

 Monthly, and that the one on the Hoat- 

 zins is adapted from a publication of the 

 New York Zoological Society. In any 

 event, they form an harmonious whole 

 from the initial ones which carry the 

 reader southward into the tropics, across 

 the Sargasso Sea and through the West 

 Indies, to the final 'Jungle Night,' which 

 leaves him in moonlight stillness of the 

 jungle with the weird cry of the big goat- 

 sucker-like poor-me-one ringing in his 

 ears. Looked at as a picture, the light 

 and shade values are the elements best 

 executed. — -J. T. N. 



The Ornithological Magazines 



The Auk. — In the October issue we may 

 read a valuable contribution on 'The 

 Nesting Grounds and Nesting Habits of 

 the Spoon-billed Sandpiper' by Joseph 

 Dixon, who shows us a half-tone of the 

 country and of the eggs and nest of this 

 little-known bird, as well as diagrams of 

 its nuptial flight and a sketch map of 

 northeastern Siberia. This very rare 

 Sandpiper, with its peculiar, spade-shaped 

 bill, is accidental on the Alaskan coast, but 

 it has been taken in migration as far south 

 as Rangoon, Burma. In contrast to this 

 study of a rare bird in the far north, we 

 have observations made on the common 

 Crow in Massachusetts by Dr. Chas. W. 

 Townsend, under the title, 'A Winter 



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