The Birds of Our Country. By H. E. Stewart. Illustrated.
(Digby, Long, and Co.)—Mr. Stewart's descriptions of English birds are pleasant and chatty, and evidently derived largely from observation. There is nothing unusually distinctive in his treatment of the subject ; indeed it lacks colour and vigour, such as would be given by more frequent reference to the habits of birds. The illustrations are unequal. By the way, we do not quite understand the author's colour-scale ; to speak of the wings of the ringdove as " dark brown" is rather misleading.
The Statesman's Year-Book (Macmillan and Co., 10s. 6d.) is fuller and completer, and so more useful, than ever. The chief attraction of the volume for 1898 is the excellent maps, which, though necessarily on a small scale, are very well engraved. That which deals with West Africa is specially clear and good. There may be a few trifling errors scattered about The States- man's Year-Book, but if there are we have not discovered them, and in all fundamentals and essentials the work is entirely trust- worthy.
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