NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 435 



being "escaped, taking a direct course up the river." How 

 much better would it have been for the author to have used his 

 influence to secure its protection, and to have pointed out to the 

 game preservers in his neighbourhood that, so far as they were 

 concerned, the Osprey, from its piscivorous habits, would not be 

 likely to do any harm, while it would afford pleasure and 

 instruction to those who, watching its fishing operations, take a 

 keener interest in observing the actions of uncommon birds than 

 in pursuing and slaying them. If our rarer birds are to be pre- 

 served from eventual extermination, it might well be through the 

 efforts of local ornithologists. A very good example in this 

 direction has been already set in Norfolk, and on the Fame 

 Islands, and we trust it may be followed in other parts of the 

 country. 



We should like Mr. Prentis's little book better if he had told 

 us more about the habits of the birds observed by him, their 

 coming and going, the period of their stay, and particularly the 

 food of the smaller species, which as an agriculturist he has 

 evidently good opportunities for ascertaining. Instead of infor- 

 mation of this kind, his remarks are too often limited to a mere 

 record of a particular species having been seen or shot at a 

 particular date. Occasionally, however, we come across some- 

 thing more interesting, as for example, under the head of 

 " Montagu's Harrier " we are told that this bird " always comes 

 to us in the spring of the year, unlike the Hen Harrier, which 

 always comes in the autumn ; that they take up their quarters in 

 the woods, flying over the fields and low coppices till they are 

 shot." 



The Shrike which Mr. Prentis saw on the top of a faggot- 

 stack, and which he describes as "a brown bird not unlike a 

 Thrush " (p. 17), was surely not the Grey Shrike as he supposes, 

 but a female Kedbacked Shrike. 



"The Bearded Tit," he says, "has not to my knowledge 

 occurred in my district ; but three were shot in a reed bed on the 

 banks of the Medway in the winter of 1865 near Maidstone." Is 

 this the latest instance of its occurrence in Kent ? Mr. Miller 

 Christy has chronicled its history in the adjoining county of 

 Essex ('Birds of Essex,' 1890, p. 91) ; and it appears from the 

 * Beports on the Migration of Birds ' (ix. p. 20) that one appeared 

 at Landguard Lighthouse in the early morning of Feb. 16th, 1887, 



