Review.



131



REVIEW.


BIRDS THROUGH THE YEAR.*


This book should be in the hands of every aviculturist. Well

written and as a rule accurate, it conducts the reader through the

ornithological year, from the first arrival of the spring migrants,

through busy summer and changing autumn to chilly winter and the

early songsters again. The reading matter is enjoyable, and graced

in places with imagery that is almost poetic. The illustrations,

though of unequal merit, are as a rule good, and add materially to

the value of the book.


The most delightful chapter, perhaps, deals with “ the lonelier

hours,” being a vivid and most poetical description of the glories of a

summer night. We read of the “ cool grey stain ” of daylight, of the

“ dusk full of earth’s perfumes, obscurely lit with flowers,” of the

“ soft veil of the June night,” of the earth on cloudy summer nights

“ lit with its own moon and stars,” of constellations of blossom in

the dusky hedges, of white heads of clover shining in the pastures

like a Milky Way. Then we have a page on the pulsing activity of

the ghost moths as they swing and sway over the June meadow.

Next comes a disquisition on bird song, followed by an avian time¬

table as the singers succeed each other through dusk to dawn.


The text abounds with happy phrases. The Swift is described

as “ the most bird-like of birds ”—though perhaps some of us would

prefer to give that title to the Albatross. The Robin’s nest is a

Nightingale’s “clipped at the edges” (p. 11); we read of the Buzzard

“spinning slow rings over the cliff” (p. 23), of Plovers and Water-

fowl “ lightly dipped in sleep ” (p. 161), of the Yellowhammer

“ tracing golden semicircles about his hen” (p. 169), of the “flutter¬

ing buoyancy ” of the Sand-Martin (p. 118), and the sapphire Dragon¬

flies “drifting among the sedges” (p. 188). The excellent and

practical chapter on feeding birds is worthy of close study, and in

discussing the diet of birds the authors pay a tribute to aviculture :

“ Few field observers care to be aviculturists, but they are inferior to

the keeper of caged birds in this department of knowledge ” (p. 310).



* ‘Birds through the Year,’ by W. Beach Thomas and A. K. Collett. London :

T. C. & E. C. Jack. Pp. 361. Price 7/6 net.



