45 
PHOTOGRAPHIC ORNITHOLOGY. 
British Birds’ Nests | How, Where, and When to Find | and 
Identify them | By | R. Kearton \ Author of ‘‘ Birds’ Nests, Eggs, and 
gg Collecting” | Introduction by | R. Bowdler Sharpe, LL.D. | Illustrated 
from Photographs by | C. Kearton | of Nests, Eggs, Young, etc., in their 
Natural Situations | and Surroundings | Cassell and Company, Limited 
| London, Paris & Melbourne | 1895 | All rights reserved[.] 
[Royal 8vo, xx +368, pages. Price 21s. net]. 
This beautiful work, with its 118 reproductions of photo- 
of the most delightful books which has been written on this 
special subject in Natural History. 
r. Kearton says that the great feature of the book lies 
in the unique character of the pictures. In this respect he 
Claims ‘that it is the first practical attempt to illustrate a manual 
on the subject from photographs taken zz sztu.’ Personally we 
think the charm of the book lies, not only in the reproductions 
of the photographs of birds’ nests, which must be seen to be 
instantly admired, and about which we have not a word to say, 
except of unstinted praise, for the love of them grows on us the 
oftener we study them ; but in the fascinating personality of the 
work, although references, and rightly so, are made to other 
writers, 
The adventures of Mr. R. Kearton, the birds’-nest man, 
and his brother, Mr. C. Kearton, the photographer, are what the 
reader most eagerly follows, as their narratives of dangerous, 
wearisome, yet successful expeditions may make smoother in no 
small degree the path of him who would follow in their footsteps. 
To see a photograph of a bird’s nest, which at once strikes the 
eye as having been difficult to procure, and almost before the 
mind has determined how it might be done, to have it answered _ 
by one who was there at its taking, cannot fail to be interesting 
reading, and a series of such must of necessity be attractive. 
very country boy has gone birds’ nesting, and though he 
vrs not have seen one-twentieth of the birds’ nests mentioned in 
is book, some he will know, even beyond its fullest descrip- 
ad for it is a concise dictionary of British Birds’ Nests. 
Our mind suddenly dwells on our first Redpoll’s nest, found in a 
wild-rose bush overhanging a dry ditch; we turn to ‘Redpoll, 
Lesser,’ and run our eye along the sections :—‘Description of 
arent Birds,’ ‘Sttuation and anced ‘Ma terials,’ ‘ Eggs,” 
February 858 
