364 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



going on for more than a quarter of a century, and that the 

 results have been carefully chronicled, the wonder is not that so 

 many species of birds have occurred on Heligoland, but that 

 so many have hitherto escaped detection. This, he says, must 

 be accounted for on the theory that after all the appearance of 

 birds on Heligoland is only accidental. 



For some time previous to 1892 Herr Gatke had commenced 

 to prepare his notes for publication, and in that year he completed 

 and issued a volume which will ever remain famous in the annals 

 of Ornithology. Written in German, however, it failed to attract 

 the wide attention which it deserves, and it was not until the 

 present year that an English translation by Mr. R. Rosenstock, 

 edited by Mr. J. A. Harvie Brown, at length supplied what has 

 long been a desideratum with English naturalists. Like every- 

 thing which emanates from the publishing house of Mr. David 

 Douglas of Edinburgh, it is a model of what a book of this kind 

 should be, the typography, paper, and illustrations being all in 

 their way excellent. Many of the illustrations are reproductions 

 of pen-and-ink sketches by the author; not finished drawings 

 such as might be expected from so accomplished an artist, but 

 rapidly executed sketches very characteristic of the species figured, 

 and sufficiently accurate to illustrate the author's remarks. There 

 are, moreover, two portraits of the veteran ornithologist, one of 

 which, representing him in his shooting dress with a large grey 

 gull in his right hand and a gun in his left, forms a striking and 

 most appropriate illustration. 



To attempt to give anything like an adequate summary of the 

 varied contents of this volume of nearly 600 pages is well-nigh 

 impossible, but we may allude briefly to the more important 

 features. Roughly speaking, it is divided into two portions, the 

 latter part, amounting to two-thirds of the volume, being occupied 

 with a catalogue raisonne of all the birds which have been ascer- 

 tained to have been met with on this remarkable island, with very 

 full notes upon every species ; while the first two hundred pages 

 are devoted to such subjects as the course of migration generally 

 in Heligoland, direction of the flight, altitude, velocity, meteoro- 

 logical conditions influencing migration, the order of migration 

 according to age and sex, and exceptional phenomena. Between 

 these two sections we find a most interesting chapter on '■ Changes 

 in the colour of the plumage of birds without moulting." 



