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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Birds of South Africa. Vol. I. By Arthur C. Stark, M.B. 



R. H. Porter. 



This volume introduces the series about to be published on 

 the ' Fauna of South Africa,' edited by Mr. W. L. Sclater, the 

 Director of the South African Museum, Cape Town, and possesses 

 a melancholy interest by the fate of its author, who was killed at 

 Ladysmith during the late siege. 



Ornithology is rapidly becoming — even if it is not already — 

 much less an esoteric science, to be followed only by students of 

 means, who found it possible to acquire a charming but all too 

 expensive a literature. We already possessed Sharpens edition 

 of Layard, and the excellent ' Notes on the Birds of Damara 

 Land,' by Anderson, revised by Mr. J. H. Gurney ; but these 

 were practically the only handbooks on the South African sub- 

 ject. There was a large literature, as may be seen by the 

 bibliography given in this volume, but it pertained to the posses- 

 sion of a specialist's library ; while the ponderous, expensive, 

 and somewhat unreliable volumes of Le Vaillant were not only 

 outside the reach of most, but represented an archaic form of the 

 science. Consequently this book supplies a real want, as any 

 traveller or collector in that now unsettled region will gratefully 

 acknowledge. 



The classification pursued is very largely an eclectic one, 

 based upon the proposed systems of Messrs. Sclater and Sharpe; 

 the plan and arrangement followed is that of Mr. Oates in the 

 volumes on " Birds " in the ' Fauna of British India,' while a 

 very welcome feature of the book is the quite unusual amount of 

 information afforded under the heading " Habits." This subject 

 should, and probably will, incite many observers to fresh efforts, 

 for the bionomical story of the South African Birds is yet very 

 largely to be told. Much has still also to be added to the distri- 

 butional areas of the birds. Thus the so-called " Mountain 



