14 
NATURE NOTES. 
Some are certainly not good portraits of the birds they purport to represent; 
but others are very good indeed. In the former the failing is usually in the 
outline of the bird, which is sometimes wooden and angular, in the drawing of 
the wing furthest from the observer, the nape of the neck (indifferent bird-stuffers 
generally stuff a bird’s neck badly), and the thighs. These last should not be 
shown prominently (a golden plover has been furnished with thighs which would 
not disgrace a game Bantam cock), but here they mar what would otherwise be 
altogether delightful pictures, those of the ringed-plover and common 
sandpiper. But we are very loth to find fault with any of the plates ; because 
of their great beauty of execution, and the wonderful accuracy with which the 
attitudes and characteristic appearance of the birds have been depicted. This is 
what might have been expected, for, in the words of the author, “ the pictures 
cf birds in this book are all drawn from nature, most of them from life, and, 
when that was not feasible, from fresh killed specimens placed in the attitudes, 
and with the surroundings such as I had seen when they were alive.” 
The professed ornithologist will be grateful for the book, for the author has had 
exceptional advantages in observing birds to see which is not the lot of everyone, 
even though they may have sought birds far and wide. Among the more in- 
teresting plates we may especially call attention to that of the ospreys at their 
nest. But the fish (apparently of the salmon tribe), carried by the old birds to 
their young, look to us astonishingly heavy. That borne in the claws of the bird 
in the backgroutid is nearly as long as the bird itself, mea.sured from its beak to 
the tip of its tail, and must have weighed a good deal. The ospreys hold the 
fish “ fore and aft, with one foot before the other, in such a manner as would 
least impede their flight ; the head of the fish foremost as they [the birds] flew 
against the wind.” The subject of another plate is a pair of sea eagles at their 
nest, swooping at a couple of sheep dogs. .And we may notice an ingenious 
tame starling raising a stone by inserting its beak under it, and then opening its 
bill wide, in order to see if any insects or worms are lurking beneath the stone ; 
young herons in the nest; a red-necked phalarope floating duck-like on the water; 
downy black guillemots in the nest ; and a skua attacking a gull. In this last 
the expression of sore sickness on the countenance of the unfortunate gull, forced 
to disgorge its fish, is admirably (perhaps humorously?) depicted. The letter- 
press includes .some interesting notes on the habiis of the osprey, and an account, 
in the words of a deer stalker, of three golden eagles hunting red deer, and killing 
a year-old stag. Here and there, too, we come upon facts which show that the 
author is a careful observer We have culled the following as examples. Rail- 
way travelling has a bad effect on the health of birds. The eyes of an old cuckoo 
are pale, while those of a young bird are dark hazel. The rooks at Moidart have 
not so large a bare space at the base of the beak as have those which inhabit a 
rich agricultural country, perhaps, the author surmises, becau.se they have not 
depth enough of soil to rub ofl' the feathers. .A ringdove in Kensington was 
observed eating the flowers of the horse-chestnut, and a captive woodcock, when 
groping for w'orms in a tumbler of wet mud, was seen stamping meanwhile with 
its foot on the floor of the cage, “as blackbirds do when they want worms to 
come up out of the earth, but with one foot at a time.” 
We notice a few inaccuracies in the book, which might have been avoided 
had the author consulted the modern histories of British bird.s. It is true that 
divers, of two species, breed in the north of .ScotlanrI, but the great northern 
diver is not one of them. Nor does the little auk breed in Shetland. The 
number of eggs laid by the oyster-catcher is usually three, not four, and the 
wood-wren is not so rare in .Scotland as the author supposes. The illustrations 
of the spotted fly-catcher feeding a young bird, the song thrush (not an easy bird 
to draw truly), the chaffinch and the grey crows at a dead sheep on a cliff, 
especially take our fancy ; also the beautifully drawn head of a wild swan, though 
the proportion of yellow and black on the bill .should have been more carefully 
defined, since this is one of the marks of distinction between the whooper (to 
which the appended note refers) and Bewick’s swan. But on the whole we like 
best the diving birds, and the coast .scenes o( bird-life, though the drawings of 
young birds in down and nest dre.ss are very interesting. 
All bird lovers will like to have this handsome volume, for it will always be 
a jilea.sure to look through the plates, and the author is quite justified in hoping 
