NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 397 



would naturally thrive in a closely wooded country where 

 inhabitants are scarce and each keeper has a wide beat." The 

 Polecat is not mentioned, from which we are to infer that it is 

 at the present day as extinct as the Marten. The same may be 

 said of the Kite, the Honey Buzzard, Common Buzzard, Marsh 

 and Hen Harriers ; but the authors, apparently, are unaware of 

 the fact that Montagu's Harrier is not only an annual visitor to 

 a certain part of the Forest, but is known to have nested there 

 several times of late years. " Ten years ago," it is said (p. 258), 

 " Lapwings were numerous on Brook Common. Now they are 

 rarely there, though they still haunt the wilder plains." 



Herons are numerous, and form a feature that is in harmo- 

 nious keeping with the wilder landscapes of the Forest. The 

 following passage, relating to this bird, will convey a good idea 

 of the writers' style and power of observation : — 



"Lately it happened to one of the present writers to be pointing out 

 to a visitor the beauties of the view from the foot of Raik's Brake — an 

 expanse of wild scrub, of heather and bracken, and of snipe-marsh yellow 

 with the moss-patches and pale glints from the standing water here and 

 there. Down the middle of the picture a stream came winding, and ever 

 broadening as it came, from the tiny rivulet scarcely seen among the 

 heather and bracken on the top of the long hill on the right. On the left 

 a clump of firs threw a dark shadow across the stream, and the scene 

 melted away in undulating distances to the blue hills of Dorsetshire. As 

 we looked on this scene, which was absolutely without life or motion, a 

 heron came heavily flapping over our heads and settled, on long legs, in 

 the middle of the marsh. It was the completing touch that made the 

 picture perfect, and a touch that is often present to complete the wilder 

 landscapes in the Forest." 



The Pheasant. Natural History, by the Rev. H. A. Macpherson; 

 Shooting, by A. J. Stuart Wortley ; Cookery, by Alex- 

 ander Innes Shand. 8vo, pp. 265. With illustrations. 

 London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1895. 



Messrs. Longman's * Fur and Feather Series,' of which two 

 volumes have been already favourably noticed in this journal 

 (' The Partridge,' Zool. 1894, p. 199, and ' The Grouse,' torn, cit., 

 p. 358), commends itself alike to naturalists and sportsmen, not 

 only on account of the accurate information which is given in 

 the different sections by authors who are well qualified to write 



