NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 393 



would not make the land. At last a single old goose — a Bean Goose he 

 was — stepped out and ran up the bank. He was quickly followed by one 

 or two more, and then by the first of the Brent. And now that they had 

 started, they went quickly enough, scrambling after one another and 

 heading into the net. Over the green they ran like a flock of domestic 

 geese. Sometimes they aimed for right or left, but then the children 

 showed themselves and the geese were turned. 



The last bird was in, and then we closed the rear. Not a Brent had 

 flown, not a Brent had dived, not one escaped. Of all that army every 

 bird was in the net — a dense, black, moving mass." 



Their escape being barred, the men proceeded to kill them by 

 breaking their necks, and they were then stored for provisions in 

 the following singular manner: — 



" The turf cut round with the axe, where the cloudberry grew thickest, 

 was torn up with the hands ; then the geese were stood on their tails with 

 the heads tucked in, till the girls had made a circular group some three or 

 four yards across. Then the turfs were rolled back on them a double layer, 

 and the packing was complete." 



Our extract of this curious description is so lengthy, that we 

 have little space in which to refer to Mr. Trevor Battye's 

 personal adventures : how he landed on the island with his 

 companion, Mr. Thomas Hyland, a bird-stuffer from the steam- 

 yacht ' Saxon,' chartered by Mr. Powys ; how, in consequence of 

 ice floating in, the ship was unable to take him off at the time 

 arranged: how his sojourn there was consequently delayed for 

 three months, so that his friends in England imagined he must 

 have perished ; how at last he was rescued by a Russian trader 

 and safely landed near the Petchora Delta, whence, by an over- 

 land route, he eventually returned safe to England. 



These episodes are all graphically detailed in a fresh and 

 lively style, and the reader is left in doubt which to admire most, 

 the author's pluck under very trying circumstances, or his 

 enthusiasm in making natural history collections under such very 

 adverse conditions. 



His narrative has been very appropriately illustrated by- 

 Mr. Nettleship and Mr. Charles Whymper, from photographs 

 and rough sketches supplied to them, and the result is one of the 

 most attractive books of travel by a naturalist that we have met 

 with for some time. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XIX. OCT. 1895. 2 H 



