STUDIES OF BIRDS AND BOOKS. 
71 
“ Little divel douse, 
The biggest divel in the house, 
Money I want, an’ money I crave ; 
If ye don’t give me money. 
I’ll bring ye to the grave.” 
The name after “ Mr.” is varied at each house, 
seen the lines given 
and 
“ On St. Stephen’s Day she was caught in the furze,” 
“Although she was little, her family was great.” 
I have 
Observe 
people’s ! 
that my boys had a better ear than the other 
Emily H. Hickey. 
SUMMER STUDIES OF BIRDS AND BOOKS.* 
This volume, by one of our vice-presidents, should be on the shelf of every 
Selbornian : it is one of those books which can be read again and again. Most 
of the chapters have appeared before, either as lectures or as papers in a maga- 
zine, and they all, with one exception, deal more or less with birds. The excep- 
tion is the charmingly-written memoir of Billy, the author’s wire-haired fox-terrier. 
But Billy is not in the least out of place in this book on birds, for no fox-terrier 
ever accompanied his master on so many ornithological rambles as he did ; and 
no dog ever knew better than Billy when an interesting bird had been seen and it 
was his duty to become motionless. One chapter on the Engstlen Alp makes an 
excellent .supplement to Mr. Fowler’s chapters on the Alps in June and Septem- 
ber in A Year with the Birds, and should be carefully read by all lovers of nature 
who intend paying a visit to Switzerland. 
One of the best of the many good chapters is that on the Marsh Warbler ; it 
furnishes an excellent illustration of the method of a thorough field naturalist, 
from the moment when he suspected the presence of the exquisite singer until he 
discovered the nest close to an Oxfordshire railway bank. “ In telling the whole 
history of my acquaintance with the birds, I have been aiming at giving those who 
have not yet met with it a better chance of discovering it than they would gain 
from even the best handbooks. I have told them my own failures and diffi- 
culties, in order that they may avoid such experiences themselves, and may not 
waste time in looking for the bird in places where they are not likely to find him” 
(p. 95). This is the lesson which Mr. Fowler tries to teach us ; may we profit 
by it ! 
In discoursing on wagtails Mr. Fowler expresses the view that the wagging of 
their tails is “no more than a nervous trick, which in their case, as in that of so 
many others, expresses happiness and satisfaction.” but that “ the nervous trick 
has a secondary use ; it is not only a sign of satisfaction but also a signal, and 
the white is a recognition 7 iiark, as Mr. Wallace has called it.” 
The chapter on the “ Songs of Birds ’’has a special value, from the writer being 
a musician as well as a naturalist ; and his remarks on the comparative merits of 
our best singers will be read with interest by all naturalists. The appendix, too, 
contains a very useful account of the vocal organs of birds. It is a relief to find 
that Mr. Fowler does not attribute all singing to the desire of the cock bird to 
fascinate the hen. You cannot name a distinctive feature of an animal, whether 
in voice or appearance, to some persons, without their maintaining that it exists 
solely for the purpose of love-m-aking. They seem to think birds spend their 
* Summer Studies of Birds and Books, by W. Warde Fowler, M.A. Mac- 
millan & Co., 1895. Price 6s. 
