I9I4. 
Reviews. 
25 
The chapter on structural characters is drawn up by Mr. Pycraft, 
and will be of much use to those who wisli to understand some of the 
difficulties attaching to a proper system of classification and arrangement. 
The classification followed in the Bird -Book is in the main that of Dr. 
Gadow, which is also followed by Mr, Evans in his volume on Birds in 
the " Cambridge Natural History " ; but in the case of the Passcriformes 
the Editor states that the arrangement of Families is new, and based on 
the researches of Mr. Pycraft. This makes it the more remarkable that 
Mr. Pycraft in his own arrangement concludes the Passcriformes with 
the Swallows — a feature in previous lists which he seems to condemn 
on p. 559 as due to the desire of amateurs to make an easy transition from 
Order to Order by suggesting imaginary links. In his " key to classifi- 
cation " Mr. Pycraft does not himself, even as regards Orders, adhere 
fully to the system followed in the text of the book, for he suppresses 
the " Cuculiformes," and makes the Cuckoos a mere suborder (Cuculi) of the 
Order Coraciiformes. The total number of Orders of British birds is 
thus reduced to ten, as compared with seventeen recognised in Saunders' 
Manual. As all our existing local and county faunas follow the arrange- 
ment of the last-named volume, it must for a long time remain the most 
familiar to students of bird -life ; but this is no reason why we should not 
be pointed out the way to a better grouping, even though, as Mr. Pycraft 
admits, the best must yet be regarded as only tentative. 
It is, however, as a summary of what is so far known of the habits 
of British birds that the fine work now completed will be most prized. 
In former reviews {Irish Nnt., vols. xix. 248; xx.. 159; xxi., 123; and 
xxii., 53), we have drawn attention both to the great merits and to some 
of the oversights discernible in the various parts as they successively 
appeared. We are still inclined to say that while the accounts of nuptial 
displays which make so large a feature in most chapters are of incontestable 
value, their bearing on the question of sexual selection is far less clear than 
it would be if due attention had also been paid to the manner in which 
plumage is either displayed or exposed during combat or defiance. Is 
the display before the female, it may be asked, a successful demonstration 
of untarnished prowess in war, or has it no other object than to gratify 
an aesthetic sense through which all the females of the species have from 
time immemorial selected their mates according to a uniform but 
apparently quite arbitrary standard of beauty ? Mr. Kirkman himself 
does not entirely omit this aspect of the ([ucstion. In the eleventh 
section, for example, he shows that the nuptial display of the Gannet is 
in some features a repetition of its battle display. But this subject 
has not received, on the whole, its proportionate share of notice. The 
meaning of egg -coloration, too, has been very spasmodically touched, 
and might well have formed matter (especially after what Mr. Kirkman 
had said of the eggs of the Guillemot) for a supplementary chapter. But 
the Bird -Book is assured of a high and permanent place in our ornitho- 
logical literature, and the Editor and all his contributors may be justly 
proud of their share in its production. 
C, B. M, 
