12 JULY 1884, Page 22

Sketches of Bird Life. By James Edmund Harting. (W. H.

Allen and Co.)—Mr. Harting bases his sketches on "twenty years obser- vations of the haunts and habits" of birds. He treats in order of between thirty and forty kinds of birds, permanent or migratory in- habitants of this island. He has a good word, we observe, to say for the sparrows,—a bird for which it is not easy, in spite of all that may be urged on its behalf, for any one with a garden to feel tolerance. It is but a poor consolation when they have rooted up all your peas to be told that they will feed their young with possible cockchafers a month hence. The "Thrush," the "Robin," the "Nightingale," are among the birds to which Mr. Harting devotes most space. These Sketches are furnished with some prettily-executed illustrations.