253



Reviews.



A HANDLIST OF BRITISH BIRDS. *


The numbers of rare stragglers recorded from our shores

has, owing to the attention given to the subject by many col¬

lectors and ornithologists, increased so considerably of late years

that we welcome with pleasure Messrs. Witherby’s List, which

brings all these scattered records together ; it also, as the authors

belong to the latest and most advanced class of systematists,

includes under a different heading all the different races of the

same species, which have occurred in our islauds. From these

two points of view alone, this little volume will prove most

useful and acceptable to British Ornithologists generally. We

may not individually all agree as to the merits of certain races

to subspecific rank, but no one will deny the advantage of having

these various races clearly set out in a List like the present, our

only regret being that the distinguishing characters of the

different races are not given as well. We are quite aware that

this book is intended only as a List, but as space is found for

Distributional and Migrational notes a couple of lines giving

the main characteristics of the different subspecies would have

rendered the book still more complete and useful. The notes

on the Distribution, both in the British Isles and Abroad, as

well as the Migration notes, are extremely well and concisely

written.


This book, however, was mainly written witli a view of

advertising and popularising the names, many of them new, that

should be borne by our native birds under the new international

Code, to criticise these names in detail in our journal would be

out of place, but we must say that some of the names appear to

us to have been needlessly changed, while the alteration of

others, such as the transference of the name iliacus from the

Redwing to the Thrush, and musicus from the Thrush to the

Redwing is likely to lead to confusion rather than to uniformity

and clearness. On this nomenclature question we have, how¬

ever, a complaint against the authors. The International Com¬

mittee, whose work they uphold with so much enthusiasm, is



* A Handlist of British Birds with an account of the distribution of each species in

the British Isles aud Abroad, by Ernest Hartbrt, F. C. R. Jourdain, N. F. Ticehurst

and H. F. Withkrby. 8vo. 237pp. London : Witherby & Co. 7/6 net.



