NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 317 



order that the reader may be enabled to get fuller information, if 

 desired, on particular points which the editor, with a view to 

 economising space, has perhaps been compelled to treat a little 

 too briefly. 



As regards illustration, we are inclined to think that in the 

 parts before us this has been a little overdone. There can be no 

 need to give several figures by different artists of the same species ; 

 one good figure is all that is required, and a bad one is worse than 

 none at all. We have noted several which are by no means satis- 

 factory, because the drawing is inaccurate, and they would have 

 been better omitted. No one, for example, ever saw a true Wild 

 Cat, Felis catus, with a white foot, an Otter with a recurved tail, 

 or a Ferret with a bushy tail like a Marten. The Shrews figured 

 on page 328 are positive deformities, and a Pipistrelle (p. 274), 

 Indian Mungoose (p. 469), Beech Marten (ii., p. 53), Sable (p. 55), 

 and Mink (p. 68), are as unlike the originals as it is possible to 

 make them. Still, these are exceptions, and the majority of the 

 illustrations, especially those drawn by Wolf and Zwecker, are true 

 enough in outline, and characteristic as regards their attitudes. 



We trust that, with the issue of the last part, the editor will 

 see his way to give a scheme of General Classification, according 

 to the latest information, and indeed it would have been useful 

 to supply this by instalments at the head of each section. For 

 example, a key to the families and genera of Apes, Monkeys, and 

 Lemurs would have been of great assistance to the uninitiated 

 reader, who without it must experience a sense of great bewilder* 

 ment in dealing with so large a number of species as are placed 

 before him. 



But the aim of the work is distinctly good, and, so far as we 

 are able to judge, it is conscientiously and ably carried out* 



British Birds / being Coloured Illustrations of all the Species of 

 Passerine Birds resident in the British Isles, with some Notes 

 in reference to their Plumage. By Claude W. Wyatt. 4to. 

 London : W* Wesley & Son. 1894. 



Mr. Wyatt' s name will be favourably remembered in con- 

 nection with a Monograph of the Hirundinidce which he published 

 in co-operation with Dr. R. B. Sharpe. 



