FOUR BIRD BOOKS. 
183 
so now he always has a drink, morning and evening, but is 
never as thirsty when it is very hot as he is when it is cooler. 
I think his chief characteristics are his wonderful powers of 
scent and hearing, especially of distinguishing sounds, never 
noticing any noise going on in the street, however loud (always 
excepting organs, when his attention is riveted), but at a footfall, 
or door closing in the house, he is on the alert at once ; he is 
also intensely inquisitive, recognizing anything as new in a room 
directly he enters, and smelling it over and over, until quite 
satisfied he will know it again anywhere. 
M. L. Goodacre. 
FOUR BIRD BOOKS. 
HAT particular school of field-ornithologists which has 
been, if not founded, at all events fostered by Mr. 
Fowler’s A Year with the Birds, will welcome Mr. 
Parkhurst’s diary* of a year’s observations made in 
Central Park, New York City (with few exceptions, in the small 
section of it known as “ The Ramble,” covering about only one- 
sixteenth of a square mile), and will perhaps be surprised at the 
number of species he has been able to see in this limited area. 
It seems really as though a locality of so public a character as a 
city park, so far from being shunned by the birds, finds especial 
favour with certain species. After advocating in the prelude the 
claims to attention of field ornithology, and treating of the sub- 
ject generally, the months and their birds are dealt with in 
succession. In these chapters we are introduced to nearly a 
hundred species of birds, chiefly migrants, it is true, and only seen 
while on passage, for the actual residents in the “ Ramble ” are 
few in number. But this fact, perhaps, constituted one of the 
greatest charms in this year of observations, for during the 
migration season the novice knows not what a morning may 
bring forth, while the experienced observer looks anxiously for 
the arrival of old acquaintances, and knows the time of their 
coming. The author has interwoven with the narrative the 
discussion of all the prominent aspects of bird life that pertain to 
field ornithology, and has thus produced a most readable book, 
for though his manner of introducing us to the birds is sometimes 
a little fanciful, it is always pleasing. North American birds 
always interest us, they are so like our own. We read here of 
thrushes, titmice, swallows, finches, kingfishers and woodpeckers ; 
* The Birds' Calendar, by H. E. Parkhurst, pp. viii., 351. (London : John 
C. Nimmo, 1895.) 
