NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 119 



the more recently published account, by the Editor of this 

 Journal, of the breeding of the Oriole in Dumpton Park, Isle 

 of Thanet ; Mr. Bartlett's notice of the Gadwall, of which Mr. 

 Dowker says he could find no record ; the notes by Messrs. 

 Mummery, and Gordon, and so on, — all of which sources of 

 information should have been looked at before printing* the 

 present list. 



Nor has Mr. Dowker adopted anything like a clear mode of 

 expressing such facts as he has collected. On the contrary, his 

 statements are sometimes contradictory, and often obscure. For 

 instance, a bird is described in one place as an annual visitor, 

 and in another as of rare occurrence. A pair of Blue Tits 

 accomplished the remarkable feat of building one nest " beneath 

 two inverted flower-pots placed upon the ground." We are 

 surprised to learn that " among the annual visitors are to be 

 found many rare birds, such as the Blue Throat, Icterine Warbler, 

 Great Keed Warbler, Aquatic Warbler, the Orphean Warbler, 

 and Dartford Warbler." 



The Little Bustard is confounded with its larger relative ; the 

 specimen from Whitstable in the Dover Museum, unless we are 

 mistaken, being of the former, not the latter species, as is implied. 

 We are told that Herons arrive about the middle of February in 

 their breeding-quarters, or later if the weather is cold ; and that 

 they rear their young about the end of August/ The author 

 notices but one heronry in the county, and makes no mention of 

 that at Cobham Hall, the seat of Earl Darnley. 



As for misprints, they occur on nearly every page. We read 

 of the "genera Acrocephalus " (p. 28), of the Einged Guillemot 

 being a distant species (p. 39), of a Black Monk [qu. Stork] 

 being reported from Lydd Beach (p. 41), and so forth. 



We should have supposed that Colonel Feilden's name was 

 by this time sufficiently well known to prevent it from being 

 persistently spelled " Fielding," and that the equally familiar 

 name of an American ornithologist would not appear twice as 

 " Coue." Intending to deplore the destruction of rare birds in 

 general, and Eagles in particular, Mr. Dowker writes " What a 

 pity it is to think how these birds are destroyed " ! With all 

 these faults we can only say, What a pity it is that such a 

 pamphlet as this should have been issued without that careful 

 revision of which it stands evidently so much in need. 



