SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.] More Tales of the Birds. By W. Warde Fowler. ' (Macmillan and Co. 3s. 6d.)—It is needless to tell those who know Mr. Warde Fowler's former books that they should read this new volume. It will be enough for them to see the announcement. To all others we would say,—here is a great pleasure which you should not by any means miss. These " tales " may be classed by the .relation borne by the human element in them to the bird element. In "Dr. and Mrs. Jackson," for instance, the human predominates. We are not told much about this estimable couple—a pair of jackdaws that inhabited the steeple of an unnamed church— except that they had kindly confidence in man. The interesting person is the "old scholar," friend of man and beast, cutting off his coat buttons because their brightness pleased his feathered friends, or rolling out as he walked in his garden some grand Homeric or Virgilian rhythm. The last scene, where the birds rejoice his eyes by coming down once more to the bath which was duly set for them, is admirably pathetic. In " Sandpipers,' on the other hand, the birds are prominent. We are shown in the most graphic manner how the little ones are taught the way that they should go. But man is not left out. If the realm of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land had a civic crown for those who saved a citizen's life, it would vote it to the young fellow who swam a torrent to save the life of a half-drowned nestling. Man also shows—ultimately—to advantage in "The Last of the Barons." Let " collectors" lay tho lesson to heart. In "A Lucky Magpie" a very old story is told again very pleasantly. " Too Much of a Good Thing" is a gentle assertion of human rights. After all, man has taken a great deal of pains to grow and improve all the varieties of fruit, and he has a claim to at least a part of it.' If our feathered friends would only be content, as were the reason- able birds who haunted the poet's garden, with "a corner of the strawberry bed and every tenth tree " ! It is a special good fortune to know the taste of one's own cherries. But we must be careful lest we fall into economic heresies.
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