' * 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 239 



very funny article on the Corn-Crake in ' Punch ' for May 27th, 1914 

 (obviously from the pen of a writer who knows the bird), describes 

 the rate at ninety-eight to the minute. Judging from my own 

 experience the slower and more familiar rate is decidedly soothing, 

 while the ninety-eight bird threatened to become an intolerable 

 nuisance. I have not previously heard the voice of the Corn-Crake 

 in any of the south-eastern counties. — F. J. Stubbs (They don Bois). 



London Notes. — One or more Great Spotted Woodpeckers have 

 been frequenting one of the Highgate woods since the end of March, 

 and presumably (if a pair) have nested in the locality. Chiffchaffs 

 were heard at Highgate on April 1st. On the 30th of that month 

 I observed a Lesser Tern on one of the Highgate Ponds. Tufted 

 Ducks, at first a single bird, but ultimately two pair, frequented these 

 ponds until the end of March. Carrion Crows are rather common 

 there. I have observed four or five at once about the lower ponds in 

 Parliament Hill Fields. — H. Kirke Swann (Finchley). 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



Heredity and Sex. By Thomas Hunt Morgan, Ph.D., &c. 

 Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, London. 



This is an American publication, written by the Professor of 

 Experimental Zoology in Columbia University. It reviews the 

 principal facts, suggestions, and conclusions on the subject con- 

 tributed by other workers, and gives the results of original study 

 in the same field by the author. Such a volume is bound in its 

 treatment to be more or less argumentative, but Prof. Morgan is 

 unbiassed. He writes : — " It may not be desirable to accept 

 everything that is new, but it is certainly undesirable to reject 

 what is new because of its newness, or because one has failed to 

 keep in touch with the times." To keep oneself in touch with 

 all the novelties in evolutionary speculation, and to judge them 

 by a familiarity with advanced zoological knowledge is now within 

 the province of few indeed, and the excellent bibliography 

 appended to this volume will show the study needed for an 

 up-to-date judgment. Some applications of Natural Selection 



