1886.] Recent Literature, 259 
LANGILLE’s Our Birps AND THEIR Haunts.'—This is an out-of- 
door book by an out-of-door student of birds, and bears witness 
to much patient observation. The faults which an evolutionist 
may find in it will endear it to all those who instead of believing 
that function precedes structure, put the latter first and make it 
push its own motor. It seems strange that a working naturalist 
should suppose that birds are supernaturally fed, and should ask 
“ when are they starving or wanting sustenance ?” as though half- 
starved birds are not abundant in winter, and as though none per- 
ished! The book is wordy, or as its author would probably say, 
one of the most remarkable characteristics of the volume is its 
extraordinary verbosity. 
Everybody is quoted; Wilson, Audubon, Thoreau, Coues, Bur- 
rough, Wallace, Dall, Maynard are presented in long paragraphs ; 
there are bits of many a lesser light of zoology, and several “dis- 
tinguished taxidermists” figure in the pages. 
here is a good deal of information in the book, and moral les- 
sons and quotations are quite as prominent as ornithology. The 
book is handsomely printed. 
Psa Birds and- their ` Haunts, a popular treatise on the birds of Eastern North 
18 erica, By Rev. J. HIBBERT LANGILLE, M.A. Boston, S.. E. Cassino & Co., 
oe by Selmar Hess, New York. Complete in forty-two parts at fifty cents 
Brachi y of Protozoa, Sponges, Calenterata and Worms, including lyzoay 
Ean and Tunicata, for the years 1861-1883. By D’Arcy W. THOMPSON, 
Cambridge University press, 1885. 
VOL. XX.—No. 11, 28 
