NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 239 



Lost British Birds. By W. H. Hudson, Author of * The 

 Naturalist in La Plata ' and ' Idle Days in Patagonia.' 

 Published by the Secretary to the " Society for the Pro- 

 tection of Birds" (Mrs. Lemon, Redhill, Surrey). 8vo, 

 pp. 32. With 15 illustrations. 1894. 



Although we are not sanguine enough to believe that the 

 above-named Society will ever succeed in what appears to be its 

 principal object, namely, to persuade ladies to abandon the 

 fashion of decorating themselves with birds' feathers, the series 

 of pamphlets which are published under its auspices will, we 

 doubt not, be productive of good, inasmuch as they tend to 

 remove certain erroneous popular notions in regard to birds, 

 and give publicity to facts which are worthy of consideration. 

 Amongst these pamphlets we have particularly noted two by 

 Professor Newton, on the * Devastation of Bird-homes in 

 Florida,' and on ' The Zoological aspect of the Game-laws.' 

 Mr. Hudson, who has already explained a popular misnomer in 

 his tract on ' Osprey, or Egrets and Aigrettes,' has just con- 

 tributed to the series an essay of thirty-two pages on what he 

 terms ' Lost British Birds,' that is, birds which from various 

 adverse circumstances have ceased to reside and breed in the 

 British Islands. The species dealt with are the Crane, Spoonbill, 

 Capercaillie (though this bird has been re -introduced), Avocet, 

 Bustard, Black-tailed Godwit, Great Auk, Savi's Warbler, Black 

 Tern, Bittern, Marsh Harrier, Hen Harrier, and Ruff and 

 Reeve. The information given about each of these species as 

 formerly resident and breeding here is by no means exhaustive, 

 but so far as it goes is tolerably accurate. It is to be regretted, 

 we think, that while he was about it, Mr. Hudson did not make 

 more of his subject, which is an extremely interesting one, but 

 possibly he may have considered that any further amplification 

 would have carried him beyond the scope of the series to which 

 this pamphlet is contributed. The figures with which it is 

 illustrated, although recognizable representations of the species 

 named, are somewhat coarse in their execution, and by no means 

 comparable, for example, with those in his delightful volume on 

 La Plata, which has been already reviewed in these pages. 



