550 Recently published Ornithological Works. [Ibis, 
welcomed an extension of the references to the Great 
Auk ( Alca impennis ), concerning which bird a vast fund 
of unpublished information is to be found in the late 
Professor Newton’s MS. <( Garefowl Book” in the Newton 
Library at Cambridge. 
In addition to the copious extracts furnished from 
printed works, Mr. Gurney has gathered a valuable fund 
of information from unpublished Household Accounts and 
kindred sources, and in particular he is able, in his ninth 
chapter, to make important additions to that portion of 
the “ Le Strange Household Accounts ” first published 
in 1834 by Mr. H. Gurney in vol. xxv. of ‘ Archseologia.’ 
These constitute a valuable and interesting description of 
the various birds and other articles of food used in the 
domestic economy of a Norfolk country house in the 
sixteenth century. 
In conclusion, we must confess that we have seldom read 
a more fascinating volume, or one that carries back the 
imagination more vividly to the “ good old days ” ; and 
as we turn over the pages we can readily visualise what 
excitement must have reigned at Hunstanton Hall when 
the first bird—albeit merely a “ Watter hen ”—was u killed 
wt the gun ” on that autumn day in 1533, and wish we 
could have witnessed the great spectacle at Kenilworth * 
some forty years later, when among other pleasing devices 
a bridge was prepared for Queen Elizabeth to pass over, 
where “ upon the first payr of posts were set too cumly 
square wyre cages, each a three feet long, too foot wide : 
and by in them live bitters, curluz, shoovelarz, hearsheawz, 
godwitz, and such like dainty byrds, of the presents of 
Sylvanus the god of Food.”—W. II. M. 
Hankin on Soaring Flight. 
[The Problem of Soaring Flight. By E. H. Hankin. With an 
introduction by F. Handley Page, C.B.E. Proc. Cambridge Philos. 
Soc. xx. 1921, pp. 219-227.] 
Hr. Hankin, the Chemical Examiner to the Government 
* P. 181, 1 Annals,’ 
