Recently published Ornithological Works. 363 
31. Chapman’s ‘ On Safari.’ 
[On Safari. Big-Game Hunting in British East Africa, with Studies 
in Bird-life. By Abel Chapman. With 170 Illustrations. London: 
Edward Arnold, 1908. 1 vol., 8vo.] 
“ Big-Game,” we must allow, is tlie principal theme of 
Mr. Chapman’s volume, hut the references to Birds and 
the text-figures which illustrate them, taken from the 
author’s sketches, are so numerous and so attractive that 
we are quite justified in calling it a Bird-book also. 
“ Safari ” is a new word, and, we are told, “ has no 
precise equivalent in our British tongue.” Yet, being in 
daily use in East Africa and apparently meaning a “ hunting- 
expedition after big game,” it is a convenient expression 
which Mr. Chapman has taken leave to introduce into 
“our common language.” The author, on his three trips, 
entered British East Africa—“probably the most glorious 
hunting-field still extant,and certainly the most accessible”— 
by the usual steam-route to Mombasa, and by the so-called 
“ Uganda Railway,” which, however, does not touch Uganda 
at all. He went straight up into the great “ equatorial 
trench,” and encamped at various places in the highland 
district which shuts off Lake Victoria from the Eastern 
Ocean. On each occasion he spent many happy days in 
pursuit of big game in that hunter’s paradise. We will not 
follow him into his account of the slaughter of many 
mammals, which are not only fully described, but splendidly 
illustrated by well-drawn pictures taken from life, but we 
must at once call attention to his frequent remarks on the 
bird-life of the country, to which, as a well-known Member 
of the B. 0. U., he was bound to attend. These remarks are 
scattered throughout the volume, and relate to Sun-birds, 
Louries, Whydahs, Social Weavers, Nightjars, Boilers, 
Shrikes, Touracos, and a host of other forms which the 
luxuriant Avifauna of Tropical Africa possesses in such 
abundance. Although there are numerous scientific articles 
on the Birds of British East Africa, few ornithologists 
(except perhaps Mr. E. J. Jackson) have given us such good 
field-notes. Much may be learned from what Mr. Chapman 
