REVIEW



The Sky’s their Highway. By Kenneth Williamson. Published

by Putnam and Co., Ltd., 42 Great Bussell Street, W.C. 1. 10s. 6 d.

net.


Only a genuine lover of creatures wild and domesticated could

have written this book. Mr. Williamson is young, and his field for

observation is restricted, but he has made the very most of his oppor¬

tunities, and enters into the lives around him by means of sympathetic

observation without interference even when a Hawk chases a House

Martin, or Starlings drive Spotted Woodpeckers from the holes they

have laboriously chiselled, a height of detachment to which few

naturalists could attain. He is a north country man, and draws most

of his inspiration for his books in rambles about the dales and woods,

noting down all his observations in his diary, so that his descriptions

and notes are all first hand, with perhaps the exception of the wanderings

of the ill-fated Snowy Owl, though this is but too probable. The

author does not deal with any but well-known birds, but our interest

is captured and maintained even when he talks to us of Tawny Owls,

Ox-eye Tits, Kestrels, and Chaffinches. His method does not entail

capturing or harrying the little lives around him ; it is the result of

patient quiet watching and non-interference ; only once is he the god

from the machine when he picks up an injured Owlet and nurses it

back to health. Otherwise he is contented to listen and observe,

allowing his subjects to live their lives as seems good to them.


It must not be supposed, however, that he has merely written

a series of disjointed notes ; the chapters on Swallows show systematic

and definite study, as does also the chapter on bird songs. Mr. William¬

son is to be congratulated on having produced an interesting and

eminently readable book. The woodcuts with which it is illustrated

add greatly to the beauty of the book.



E. F. C.



