00 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



A Handbook to the Game-birds. By W. E. Ogil vie- Grant. 

 Vol. II. W. H. Allen & Co. Limited. 1897. 



With this volume Mr. Ogilvie- Grant completes his task, and 

 describes the remaining species of the order Gallinse or True 

 Game-birds, as well as that curious and aberrant form the 

 Hoatzin, and the Bustard Quails ; in fact, as Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, 

 the editor, remarks : — " His volumes contain the names of every 

 species of Game-birds known up to the present date, so that 

 they may be considered in the light of a small monograph of the 

 Gallinse." 



In these days, when so much popular Natural History is written, 

 — so to say, — secondhand, we do not always find the author an 

 admitted specialist on his subject as is the case with the writer of 

 these volumes ; nor do we usually obtain such exhaustive treat- 

 ment as has been devoted to them. Consequently we have in this 

 1 Hand-book to the Game-birds,' not only a complete enumeration 

 and description of the species, but also a nomenclature revised 

 to date, and this, to working naturalists who are not specially 

 ornithologists, is a considerable boon. Another welcome feature 

 is to be found in the copious extracts given from the published 

 writings of field naturalists and observers as to the life-habits 

 of the species, and here we would fain have wished that biblio- 

 graphical references might have been added to the same. These 

 descriptive narratives give a life and colour to the monograph. We 

 leave the mere skin with the description, and are then transported 

 to bird-life in many climes and under the guidance of competent 

 and accurate observers. In the years to come, when some 

 zoological Gibbon shall devote his life to the composition of an 

 exhaustive history of animal existence, the scattered field-notes 

 now in many languages, often buried in little known or less read 

 books, and frequently published in non-scientific journals, will 

 perhaps be brought together, and such a work may be expected 



