472 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



British Birds. By A. Thorburn. Vol.11. London: Longmans, 

 Green & Co. 1915. £1 lis. 6d. 



In this volume of his magnificent work Mr. Thorburn finishes 

 off the Crows and deals with the Larks, the Swifts, Cuckoos, &c, 

 the birds of prey, the Cormorant and Gannet, and most of the 

 Heron family. With regard to his treatment of these birds, both 

 as regards the pictures and the letterpress, we must accord, as a 

 rule, the same praise to it as we did to his first volume reviewed 

 in the ' Zoologist ' last April. Of course, as the birds dealt with 

 in the present volume are so much more picturesque than most 

 of the Passerines, one expects the illustrations to be more im- 

 posing than those in the first volume, and this is generally the 

 case. The figures of the Golden Eagle and the Eagle-Owl, 

 which occupy respectively whole pages, are well worth framing 

 as pictures, especially the latter, which is the finest plate in the 

 book in our opinion. In some cases the illustrations are not 

 quite happy; the attitude of the Koller is far too Jay-like, this 

 bird having more the pose of the Spotted Flycatcher when 

 perched ; and the Bee-eater figure has a serious mistake in it, 

 the foot being drawn like a Swallow's, whereas it resembles that 

 of the Kingfisher, with joined front toes and comparatively short 

 hinder ones. 



The Herons are a beautiful group, but the Cormorants 

 are less good ; artists do not seem to realize the essential 

 picturesqueness of these weird, old-world-looking birds. The 

 Cuckoo is presented to us as calling with the bill closed, but this, 

 Mr. Thorburn assures us, he knows to be correct from personal 

 observation, his attention having first been drawn to the point 

 by Wolf many years ago. 



A very interesting point noted is Mr. Thorburn's observation 

 that a melanistic Montagu's Harrier in Lord Lilford's possession 

 had the iris dark like a Falcon's ; such correspondence of iris 

 with plumage-colour in dark varieties not being by any means 

 universal, black fowls usually having normal eyes, and black 

 Pigeons always normal or even light ones. 



Printed Bt west, newaian and oo., hatton garden, London, e.c. 



