﻿Book Notices. 197 



up the steadiness of nerve and firmness of muscle that ought to belong 

 to the hardy race born and bred in this northern clime. And when the 

 taste for science is added to the keenness of the sportsman for game, the 

 delights of such outings are immensely enhanced. The variety and 

 rarity of the birds his gun brings down will be a matter of greater 

 consequence than the number he bags. Three great ends are gained by 

 the scientific sportsman. He can compete with others in obtaining 

 game and in securing an invigorating supply of oxygen and ozone for 

 his blood, but he has the further advantage of adding to his stock of 

 knowledge at the same time. Mr. Wintle and the friends who have 

 sympathized with him and helped him in making his collection of birds 

 had evidently many enjoyable trips to the country during the last 

 fifteen years ; and they used their opportunities well. The result has 

 been that the author can speak confidently as to the fulness and 

 accuracy of the list of the Avifauna of the Montreal district, which he 

 supplies in this volume. To add to the list, even the spoils of the pot 

 hunters have been carefully enquired into, the stalls of the Bonsecours 

 and other markets having been often visited with a view to noting the 

 species offered for sale and the localities whence they were procured. 



It is fitting that the knowledge of the Natural History of the city 

 and district of Montreal, with so famous a school of science in its 

 centre, should be as complete as possible. This book of Mr. Wintle's 

 will at least establish for our city a claim to precedence over every 

 other place in the Dominion, so far as the Department of Ornithology 

 is concerned. The geology of the district has long been known ; and 

 there is also a fair approximation to an acquaintance with its botany. 

 This publication cannot but stimulate amateurs working in other 

 departments not yet wholly overtaken to continue to prosecute their 

 researches, in the hope that they too may soon be able to present to the 

 ■public lists as complete as Mr. Wintle can claim this one of his of the 

 Birds of the District is. 



Not since 1839 has there been any attempt to catalogue the Avifaiina 

 of Montreal. A list was compiled in that year by the late Prof. 

 A. Hall, M.D., which was published in the "Canadian Naturalist and 

 Geologist" in 1861-2, and for which he was awarded a medal by 

 the Natural History Society of Montreal. Although Prof. Hall's was 

 . regarded at the time as a fairly complete list, it Was in comparatively 

 few hands, and so, for practical purposes, the lovers of birds in 

 the district had to be content with such knowledge of the subject 

 as they themselves could pick up, with the help of those larger general 

 works to which they could get access. There is, perhaps, no depart- 

 ment of Natural History in which so many persons are interested 

 as Ornithology. Birds are most attractive creatures ; and those who 

 may long have wished to know more about those beautiful, agile, gentle 

 visitants wliich build nests in their orchards yearly, or flit from limb to 

 limb of the trees on the Mountain Park, can now gratify their desire. 



