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Reviews



St. Paul’s Cathedral. The area is divided into twelve parts, and the

birds to be found in each are described.


A valuable feature of the book is a practical indexed transport guide

as to the means of getting to each place described or mentioned as

worthy of a visit, assisted by the Ordnance map called Greater London,

price 3s., and equipped with a good pair of binoculars.


I can imagine few pleasanter ways of spending a fine day and,

needless to say, Mr. Lockley is a highly efficient guide and discourses

most ably on the birds and beasts which may be seen with average luck

and eyesight. I would, however, remind him that “ Barred

Woodpecker ” is the accepted name of another species and cannot be

adopted for the Lesser Spotted, however appropriate it appears. Only

the cocks of both Pied and Lesser Spotted have red crowns (p. 11),

even as nestlings the hens have leaden ones.


A pair of Swifts breed every year in a hole in the thatch of my

garden wall, and I have many times seen a bird detach itself from the

throng dashing and screaming high up in the sky and slip noiselessly

into the hole just before nightfall. I have been told by boys hunting

the thatch after dark for Sparrows that sometimes they put their hands

into a Swift’s hole and get well bitten, they say by two birds, which may

or may not be the case. As Mr. Lockley says on p. 106, the problem

has not yet been solved.


The black and white illustrations are excellent and show the

distinguishing marks of the species under discussion most unmistakably.

Altogether an admirable book.



B. F. C.



