Notices of New Books. 8497 



Notices of New Books. 



c British Birds in their Haunts' By the Rev. C. A. Johns, B.A., 

 F.L.S. With illustrations on wood, drawn by Wolf, engraved 

 by Whymper. London : Society for Promoting Christian 

 Knowledge. Pp. 626. 



I have much satisfaction in believing that my feeble efforts at de- 

 scribing our indigenous ferns have proved a source whence many a 

 respectable family has derived meat, drink and clothing during the 

 last twenty years. Yarrell's ' British Birds ' has not been so largely 

 availed of by our bookmakers, and I can only mention a single work 

 that is solely indebted for its being to this respectable parentage. 

 More will follow as a matter of course, and I cannot but feel that this 

 work of Mr. Johns' is in great measure an offspring of the ' History of 

 British Birds ;' not such an offspring as proclaims its descent in every 

 feature, but an offspring nevertheless. The most striking of all features 

 in works of this kind is the arrangement : we have no natural arrange- 

 ment, as I have lately said, and every author who lays claim to any 

 intelligence on this subject believes he possesses a copyright in his 

 system that must not be invaded. Surely to any one capable of re- 

 flection there is no great merit in Mr. Yarrell's arrangement ; surely, 

 also, the advent of a new work on British Birds afforded an excellent 

 opportunity for effecting some change. What vast improvements have 

 been made on the Continent ! and yet Mr. Johns does not take the 

 trouble of remodelling the system, but adopts it exactly as it stands in 

 Mr. Yarrell's second edition, adding only those few species subse- 

 quently mentioned either in Mr. Yarrell's Supplement or in the ' Zoolo- 

 gist.' Again in the generic characters given collectively by Mr. 

 Johns, but at the head of each genus by Mr. Yarrell, there is too close 

 a correspondence ; the words are not the same, but the purport is the 

 same ; and in many instances where Yarrell's were susceptible of con- 

 siderable improvement that improvement is not to be discerned. 



On the other hand I have to mention several excellent character- 

 istics of the new work. The first is that the author places decidedly 

 in the background those birds which have occurred but once or twice, 

 and which have no claim whatever to the name of" British ;" a few 

 words are given to each, just enough to show that the author has in 

 no instance overlooked the record, but that he scarcely thinks it worthy 

 of preservation ; a view of the case in which I most cordially concur, 

 VOL. XXI. 2 B 



