The Scottish Naturalist. 
195 
prints, rather more than a good printer would allow to issue from his press ; 
but for these, of course, it is the publisher and not the author who is 
responsible. 
A Vertebrate Fauna of the Orkney Islands. By Thomas 
E. Buckley and J. A. Harvie-Brown. Edinburgh : David Douglas, 
1891. pp. xxiv and 314. Map and plates. 
From an early date in the annals of British natural history, the Orkneys 
have very justly proved an attractive field for the labours of naturalists. This 
is due, no doubt, to the importance that attaches to their geographical position 
and to the charm that surrounds all our northern isles. 
Commencing with Sibbald in 1684, a number of books and papers of greater 
or lesser import have appeared, but strange to say the last, and what promised 
to be, in some respects, the most useful of these, appeared so long ago as 1848, 
in the shape of the incomplete Historia Naturalis Orcadensis, of which only 
the first portion treating on the mammals and birds saw the light. Thus it is 
needless to say that a book dealing adequately with such an important region 
of the British Fauna was a decided desideratum. This blank is most admir- 
ably filled in by the book under consideration, which, from its thoroughness, 
and the excellent manner in which the subject is treated, will, we have no 
hesitation in opining, prove as welcome and as useful a volume as any of its 
predecessors in this fine series. The introductory matter deals in chrono- 
logical order with the natural historians of Orkney, and includes a list of the 
works devoted to or dealing with the Fauna of the islands. Then follows a 
section containing a concise and useful description of each island, with an ac- 
count or its chief faunal characteristics. 
The Orcadian mammals treated of are thirty-nine in number. Among 
these, as we should naturally expect, the Catacea are strongly represented ; 
no less than fourteen species being included in the list; while in the Pinnipedia, 
such interesting forms as the Walrus, Greenland Seal, etc., claim a place. 
It is somewhat surprising that the authors should countenance for one 
moment the inclusion of such a mammal as the Mouse-Coloured Bat in the 
Fauna of the isles — a species which can only be regarded as question- 
ably British. This bat and the noctule should sui-ely have been 
enclosed in the thickest of brackets. On the other hand, the short but in- 
teresting note recording the Water- Shrew for Orkney, as given by Messrs. 
Baikie and Heddle, was worthy of full quotation in place of the mere allusion 
made to it at p. 65. The authors of the Historia Naturalis Orcadensis state 
that the example obtained was "an undoubted specimen of this species, 
hitherto unknown to exist in Orkney " ; and it has not been known to occur 
since. 
Relating to the two hundred and thirty birds recorded, there is very much 
of extreme interest, and it is difl&cult to particularise among so much that is 
good. However, we cannot pass over without special allusion to the informa- 
tion it has fallen to the lot of the authors to unearth, thus late, relating to that 
most interesting — alas mainly because extinct — bird, the Great Auk. This 
occupies pp. 245-257, and forms a contribution of considerable importance to 
