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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



A Handbook of British Birds, shoiving the Distribution of the 

 Resident and Migratory Species in the British Islands, dc. 

 By J. E. Harting, F.L.S., F.Z.S. John C. Nimmo. 



This is really a commentary on the history of British Birds ; 

 it is rather a notebook than a handbook ; it expresses the author's 

 mature opinion, and gives a reference to much of the information 

 on which it is based ; it is not apparently designed as an only 

 book on the subject, but as an indispensable one among others. 

 In classification Mr. Harting remains with the older writers, and 

 commences with the Accipitres, — a matter needing little comment, 

 as the book is outside the discussion of an evolutionary principle 

 on that subject, and is devoted to the status of what may be con- 

 sidered really British Birds, and facts relating to their history. 



Mr. Harting, as the late Editor of this Journal, is well 

 acquainted with, and has largely quoted from its pages, most of 

 the records having already passed through his hands. And here 

 the difficulties of his authorship must have been accentuated. 

 The responsibility of sifting such records, accepting some as 

 beyond doubt, and rejecting others as of a more uncertain char- 

 acter, is considerable. The sceptre requires to be held with 

 judicial tenacity, and kept from the grasp of caprice, whilst the 

 sorrowful reflection cannot be avoided that some of the best 

 observations are made by those who absolutely loathe publication, 

 and whose knowledge thus remains of a purely personal character. 

 The author has shown considerable indulgence in recording 

 reports of British occurrences of the Great Black Woodpecker ; 

 these reports occupy three pages, and are subsequently said to 

 be held by Prof. Newton, on the authority of Mr. J. H. Gurney's 

 criticism in Dresser's ' Birds of Europe,' as almost worthless in 

 nearly every instance. 



There are many notes of an antiquarian character which give 

 a particular interest to the volume ; on entries found in the 



