Book Reviews 



225 



of-the-way places. In his rambles he meets many interesting characters and 

 sketches these with no less surety of touch. The bird-catchers include him as 

 one of their own, telling him of their successes, the difficulties of the profes- 

 sion, a,nd how much better it is for the birds ! Hudson sees many evidences of 

 the thieving small boy who robs the birds' nests — some for the sake of collect- 

 ing eggs, others apparently actuated only by the destructive impulse. He feels 

 the need of giving these children more knowledge of the birds, of their useful- 

 ness and beauty, thus trying to make of them protectors instead of destroyers 

 of bird life. 



He is much interested in the parental instinct shown by our feathered 

 friends — how this prompts them to risk their own lives to protect their young, 

 simulating broken wings and enfeebled condition, thus attracting the intruder's 

 attention to themselves, and, by fluttering, slowly leading him away from the 

 nest. He finds this instinct confined to no one species or order, but in many 

 separate orders, evidenced by certain individual birds, but not by every bird 

 of a species. 



He discusses the migratory instinct which impels birds of so many widely 

 varying orders to fly semiannually practically from pole to pole, thus distribut- 

 ing these birds more or less evenly all over the world. 



His discussions are not scientific, but perhaps are all the more interesting to 

 the lay-reader because of their general discursiveness. Anyone can enjoy these 

 delightful ramblings through these quaint old English villages. 



Mary Van E. Ferguson 



Adventures In Adventures Among Birds Mr. Hudson paints a series of 

 Among Birds* beautiful word-pictures of his feathered friends. Being neither 

 a sportsman, a collector, nor a photographer of wild life, he 

 has but one aim — to make himself so familiar with the bird in its "wild, free, 

 happy existence" that he may be able to impart to his readers an image, not so 

 much of its physical appearance as of the expression of its inner life as mani- 

 fested in song, flight, and social habits. These images are interwoven with 

 human experiences and descriptions of scenery which leave an indelible im- 

 pression on the reader's mind. 



With fine descriptive power he paints the wild geese and hooded crows seen 

 at Wells-next-the-Sea, the cuckoos and meadow pipits on the moors in Derby- 

 shire, the nightingales, blackbirds, skylarks, and marsh warblers (the four 

 greatest British songsters) on the green downs in Hampshire and Gloucester- 

 shire, the carrion-crows, sparrow-hawks, and long-eared owls on the forest- 

 crowned hills of the Wiltshire downs. 



Other chapters especially interesting to the animal psychologist are entitled 

 "Great Bird Gatherings," "Birds in Authority," "Friendship among Animals," 

 and "Bird Music." Many incidents connected with the writer's early life in 

 South America are scattered through the pages of the book. 



Most American bird-lovers are in the habit of thinking of England as a 

 haven for wild birds — an indirect result of the system of preserves for the 



* Adventures Among Birds. By W. H. Hudson. E. P. Button & Co., New York. 1920. 

 Pages, 314. 



