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Notices of New Books, etc.



the harmful and the useful species of birds. “Hawks” and

Owls have a bad time of it in almost all parts of the civilized

world, until the farmer is forced to recognise that plagues of

voles, rats and mice are the direct result of the indiscriminate

slaughter of his best friends, the birds that alone can keep them

in check. Moreover persecution is augmented by foolish super¬

stition, the Boers looking upon the Barn Owl as a bird of ill-

omen, the popular belief being that if one of these birds screeches

on a house top at night one of the inhabitants is sure to die soon.

The same superstition being also applied to other species of Owls.


The pamphlet before us is issued by the Bird Protection

Committee of the South African Ornithologists’ Union, the

author being Mr. Alwin Haagner, the Hon. Secretary of that

Union. For convenience the author divides the birds of prey

into two groups : Nocturnal (Owls), and Diurnal (Hawks, Fal¬

cons, Kestrels, Buzzards, Kites, &c.) The Owls are, with hardly

an exception, extremely useful and harmless, and the very best

friends of the farmer. Of the large group of Diurnal Birds of Prey

the author points out which species are useful and which are

harmful.



THE EMU.


The October number of our Australian contemporary con¬

tains an instructive article by Mr. A. H. E. Mattingley on the

habits of the Uowan or Mallee Hen (Lipsa ocellata ), one of those

interesting megapodes or mound-builders characteristic of the

Australian region. The author describes the bird’s habitat, the

curious habit of constructing mounds, partly composed of

decomposing vegetation, by the fermentation of which the eggs

are incubated, and traces the bird’s curious nesting habits back to

its reptilian ancestors.


Mr. D. Ue Souef describes some rare Australian birds

eggs ; Mr. C. G. Gibson gives some notes on the birds of the

Abrolhos Islands off Western Australia, illustrated by some

excellent photographs of nesting Noddy Terns ; Mr. Stuart

Dove treats of the birds of the Essendou district, while Messrs.

E. F. Stead and C. F. Cole deal with the habits of Cormorants in

New Zealand and Australian Waters. The Montague Island



