726 



THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. XLI 



and men. If it succeeds in teaching the trick to its young, a protective 

 habit of great value will be formed. 



Feathered Game of the Northeast.^— In a volume of 432 pages 

 Walter H. Rich, "a keen sportsman," has written of game birds for the 

 man "whose nature study has been conducted ... mostly over a gun- 

 barrel." He hopes that the scientific ornithologist as well, may find 

 its pages of interest and profit. There are eighty original, full-page 

 half-tone pictures of the birds, which are unusually life-like and in 

 which color contrasts are well brought out. There are also a few 

 hunting scenes, and one drawing in color presenting a pair of wood 

 ducks. The descriptions of the birds are informal, and the author's 

 joy in killing them is undisguised. He admires the woodcock's 

 "lead-carrying grit," and a typical anecdote concludes,— "So the 

 war went on until a lucky shot tumbled the bird from his perch minus 

 half his head." Flavors of the birds are discussed as follows,— 

 "The Sora Rail is usually introduced to the epicure in the form of a 

 pie, and it is in this stage that it makes its best showing"; of the 

 solitary sandpiper he says,— "I think he makes a good impression 

 when, after being skinned, w^pped in a thin piece of fat pork and 

 enclosed in a big potato, he has been well baked." The spruce grouse 

 is "a pretty fowl for a dining room 'bird piece.'" The shooting of 

 whistlers is enthusiastically described. These ducks are now pro- 

 tected within Boston's limits and during the winter they give pleasure 

 to hundreds of people who cross the Charles River daily. Their 

 former destruction, as seen by the genial Autocrat, led him almost 

 to lose his temper, for he wrote, — 



In presenting this book the i)ublishers announce that it contains a 

 "timely plea for modi'ration in seeking game." Brother sportsmen 

 are asked to paste in tlieir liats ili(> motto "Don't forget to leave enough 

 for seed." The author says that "the W histlers seem to be holding 



F. B. LooMis. 



He knows you! "spoitsmen" from suburban alle 

 Stretched under seaweed in the treacherous 



alleys, 



I tiling which can be said of 

 (1 it is a matter for wonder 



' Rich, W. il. l-eathered (lame of tlie Xortheast. New York, Thomas 

 G. CroweU & Co., 1907. 8vo, 16 + 432 p., iUus. $3.00. 



