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Reviews.



Falcon’s nursery, with minutely recorded details of the babies’ beha¬

viour and diet, not to mention the parents’ mode of living as anxious

husband and wife who realize their great responsibilities, make up a

book of unusual interest; showing how absorbing the very smallest

details can be in recording the daily life of any creature carefully and

patiently watched ; how it is that just those very details, unseen

and unnoticed by the man in the street, enhance the interest, teach¬

ing one to look more closely into nature ; to learn of her rather than

destroy. And on the destruction of such birds as the Peregrine,

Mr. Heatherly has something to say, warning us against the wiles

of the egg-shell collectors, helping us to throw stumbling-blocks in

their way. “ A simple method,” he writes, “is to wet each egg and

“ then scrawl all over it with a violet marking-ink pencil. This has

“no prejudicial effect on incubation, but renders the egg useless to

“ collectors, as the violet marks are more indelible than the natural

“ blotches.”


To put a stop to these greedy destroyers, we gladly accept any

means of selling them, whereby we can prevent them from selling!


To climb up and take a clutch of Peregrine’s eggs need not

be always difficult ; any fool who can shoot at all, can kill the parent

birds; let those who are really sportsmen try to do what Mr.

Heatherley and his companions did, leaving many species which are

in danger of extinction to rejoice in life and reproduction of life,

whilst giving to the world a record of interest, with the satisfaction

that good and not harm has been done. H. D. A.



THE EMU.


We have received copies of this interesting publication of

January, April, and July, 1913.


A paper worth reading, amongst others, in the January No.

is one on the habits of the Cassowary by H. L. White, in the

Rockingham Bay district, the eggs of which bird appear to be ex¬

tremely difficult to find. Two excellent photographs accompany the

article, of the nests and eggs of Cassowaries, the one concealed in

Palm Scrub, the other amid a tangle of ‘ Lawyer ’ canes.


In the April No. one’s interest is again maintained. In a



