486 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Birds of Ireland. By Richard J. Ussher and Robert 

 Warren. Gurney & Jackson. 



This is a book to be welcomed by ornithologists ; its authors 

 are naturalists of repute ; it has received assistance from most 

 Irish ornithologists; Mr. R. M. Barrington has supplied much 

 unpublished information collected from light-keepers ; the records 

 reproduced have been well sifted, and the whole book exhibits a 

 scientific method that may serve for imitation by some writers of 

 county faunas. Thompson's * Natural History of Ireland,' which 

 still contained the greatest treatise on Irish ornithology, was 

 published some fifty years ago, and the present book will naturally 

 now succeed if for present-day information. 



Of birds that have ceased to be residents are the Crane, the 

 Great Auk, and the Capercailzie ; on the other hand, the Magpie, 

 first reported in Ireland towards the end of the seventeenth 

 century, has spread rapidly, " and is now to be seen everywhere, 

 except on the barest moorlands." The Starling has increased 

 as a breeding species, and the steady extension of this bird's 

 11 summer range in Ireland is of a piece with what has taken 

 place in Scotland " ; Woodcocks have greatly increased in the 

 Irish woodlands during the summer ; and the Mistle-Thrush, of 

 which the first Irish example known to Thompson was shot in 

 1808, is now " resident, common, and widely distributed." The 

 Tufted Duck is also another bird which, during the last twenty 

 years, has extended its breeding range, while a similar remark 

 applies to the Stock-Dove, so that at least the feathered population 

 of Ireland is not diminishing. 



It is cheerful for English naturalists of our south coast to 

 read that in Ireland no bird is more characteristic of the cliff- 

 scenery than the Chough, and " in no country probably does it 

 flourish in its natural strongholds more undisturbed." Although 



