NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 279 



species are distinctly different. From his own experience, as 

 director of the Zoological Gardens at Vienna, he is able to state, 

 and from his own examination, that many birds, such as the 

 Cassowary, Turkey, Peacock, Guinea-fowl, Pheasant, Californian 

 Quail, " have specifically different eggs." He therefore comes to 

 the conclusion that " the substances which produce these specific 

 odours and tastes have not been acquired by the animal during 

 its embryological development, but that they form an important 

 constituent of the germ-plasma itself." 



Our limits will not allow of more reference to other essays or 

 more quotations from the same, but they all have the merit 

 of raising fresh thought-concepts, even when not securing the 

 reader's conviction on their main thesis ; they at least quicken 

 when they do not convince, and are a valuable addition to the 

 ever increasing literature on speculative zoology. 



Pheasants: their Natural History and Practical Management. 

 By W. B. Tegetmeieb, M.B.O.U., &c. Third Edition, 

 enlarged. Horace Cox. 1897. 



The third and enlarged edition of this book will be 

 welcomed alike by the naturalist and the sportsman, both at 

 home and in our colonies, for the Pheasant, though an introduced 

 bird by, or anterior to, the Komans, is still by most Britons 

 cherished almost as a visible sign of a British institution. The 

 name is always familiar; even in South Africa it is applied to 

 species of Pternistes and Francolinus, and there are now more or 

 less successful attempts at introducing the real bird in that 

 much-talked-about region. Mr. Tegetmeier's volume should in 

 our colonies be widely known and read, for it contains the infor- 

 mation that is absolutely requisite to enable the bird to become 

 established in those outlying estates of the Greater Britain. It 

 is but a few years back that even in the Transvaal a wealthy 

 Boer asked the present writer for advice on the subject, and 

 stated his intention to procure birds from Holland. The present 

 volume was the very one to have been placed in his hands, and 

 might have inculcated also a better love for things British. We 

 linger on this point, because the book is already so well known 



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