472 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The British Bird Book ; an Account of all the Birds, Nests, and 

 Eggs found in the British Isles. Edited by F. B. Kirkman, 

 B.A. Oxon. Section XII. T. C. & E. C. Jack. 



A notice of the first volume or section of this really great 

 book on British birds appeared in the ' Zoologist ' for 1910. 

 Section XII., completing the work, has now been published, and 

 it may be claimed that all the editor's promises, as well as the 

 reader's anticipations, have been fulfilled, while Mr. Kirkman 

 and his contributors have produced a work which not only 

 supplies the information desired for public or private museums, 

 but describes the birds also as sentient creatures. It is this 

 treatment which is now so much desiderated in all descriptive 

 works on animals, it is what Darwin could not sufficiently find 

 in his day, and is the material that will inspire the conclusions 

 of future evolutionists. "What we require are more observers, 

 trained ones if possible, but the real observer has to be discovered 

 before he can be trained. This axiom is sometimes overlooked. 

 For the purposes of this book all British records seem to have 

 been consulted, and yet observational facts are none too numerous. 

 Mr. Kirkman' e contribution on the " Study of Bird Behaviour " 

 is worth careful reading ; it is a subject which is coveted and 

 nourished in the pages of the ' Zoologist.' 



To compare this work with standard ones of twenty years 

 ago — we are not referring to sporadic compilations — is a study 

 which gives heart and courage ; the scientific evangel of the 

 nineteenth century has not been in vain, other animals than 

 man are now being studied with a new recognition and by a new 

 method. Even our British birds have not yet told their tale ; 

 they have been described, named, and located ; figured, listed, 

 and monographed ; their structure, flight, and migration de- 

 scribed ; their nests, eggs, and breeding localities recorded ; but 

 the study of their "behaviour " is of very recent date, and their 

 recognition as sentient animals still remains almost a human 

 phenomenon. It is for this, not its only merit among many 

 others, that Kirkman's bird book is to be recognized as a notable 

 publication, at least, so it seems to the present writer. In many 

 respects it pursues the method of Fabre in entomology. 



