74



Revieivs.



REVIEWS.



17 AGE DES PERDRIX. *


As year by year the number of new species to be discovered

becomes less and less, so, by slow degrees, ornithologists are

beginning to find out that the mere describing and naming of

some hitherto unknown species adds but little to our real

knowledge of birds.


If any further proof were needed to drive home what is

really a self-evident proposition this work of Dr. Bureau, the

eminent French ornithologist, should be of itself sufficient to

dispel any doubts on the matter. Dr. Bureau has taken one of

our commonest species, and one, moreover, which is perhaps the

most frequently shot of any of our native birds, not to mention

hand-rearing, importation and other factors which bring this

bird to the notice of sportsmen, game-keepers, ornithologists,

caterers, cooks and others, and yet how many of these people,

to whom such matters are, or should be, of considerable import¬

ance, can tell an old from a young bird in December?


This work is devoted entirely to questions of plumage and

moult. Dr. Bureau has made exhaustive notes by watching and

marking coveys in their wild state and has further called in

aviculture by checking his results and getting more precise data

from captive birds. The result is a very careful and complete

account of their plumages and methods of moult, especially

during the first six months of their lives.


Of the main facts brought forward there can be no doubt.

The author shows that a partridge in its first year may always

be told by the first two primaries being pointed and not rounded

as in the case of the old birds. This is due to the fact that these

first two primaries are not moulted in autumn with the others

and thus form remnants of the juvenile plumage. Until October

or November, Dr. Bureau holds that the age of any young bird

can be told almost to a day by the length and development of

the growing primaries. We are inclined to think that sufficient

allowance has not been made for individual variation in this



L'Age des Perdrix, by Dr. I.ouis Burkau. Nantes, Vie Dibraire, 28 Passage Pommerage,

8vo., 124pp. and numerous illustrations. 7ft-. 70c.



