io8 



SOME RECENT BIRD- BOOKS. 



WM. EAGLE CLARKE, F.L.S. 



1. — A Manual of North American Birds. By Robert Ridgway, 



L' ■.■.s:ra:ed by 464 outline drawings of the generic characters. Philadelphia : 

 J. B. Lippincott Company. 1888. 



2. — The Birds of Wiltshire, comprising all the Periodical and Occasional 



Msitants, as well as those which are indigenous to the County. By the 

 Rev. Alfred Charles Smith, M.A., Christ Church, Oxford; Rector of 

 Yatesbur}- : Member of the British Ornithologists' Union ; Hon. Sec. of 

 the Wiltshire Archceological and Natural History Society. Published for 

 the Author by R. H. Porter, 6, Tenterden Street, London, W. ; and 

 H. F. Bull, Devizes. 1S87. 



3. — Some more illustrations of Wild Birds, showing- their natural habits. 



By C. Ada.msox. London : Gurney 6: Jackson. N ewcastle-upon-Tj-ne : 

 Mawson, Swan, k Morgan. 1S87. 



r^Ir. Ridgway's ]\L\xrAL is another reminder of the excellence 

 of the \vork accomplished by North American ornithologists ; indeed, 

 it is perhaps not too much to aver that the avifauna of the Nearctic 

 Region has been worked out with a thoroughness that cannot be 

 claimed for any other of the zoogeographical regions. This most 

 satisfactory result is in no small measure due, we believe, to the fact 

 that our western cousins long since adopted enlightened plans of 

 procedure when electing to devote their attention to the Nearctic 

 Region as a whole. In this respect they may be said to be far in 

 advance of their European confreres, and what a contrast we in 

 Britain afford. With us the rank and file of our naturahsts are 

 content to be for ever studying our Insular fauna as if it were an 

 important natural region in itself, forgetting our direct relationship 

 to the continent of the Pal^arctic region, whose western portion, 

 at least, should form the area for their studies. We beUeve this 

 regrettable state of things is to some extent pardonable, since it is 

 in no small measure the direct result of the want of a IManual on 

 European Birds, like the one for North America now under our 

 consideration — a book whose object ' is to furnish a convenient 

 Manual of North American Ornithology, reduced to the smallest 

 compass by the omission of ever}-thing that is not absolutely 

 necessary for determining the character of any given specimen, and 

 including, besides correct nomenclature of each species, a statement 

 of its natural habitat and other concomitant data.' Such a Manual 

 for European Birds is greatly needed, and would supply a long-felt 

 and undeniable blank in the literature of a popular subject; it would 

 also stimulate our younger ornithologists to better — because more 



Naturalist, 



