Somerset Birds and Some Other Folk. By E. W. Heady.
(Eyre and Spottiswoode. its. 6d.) IN this very pleasant book a naturalist, who is also a poet, writes about the country life and the common birds of the West Country ; about spick-makers, swallows, chaffinches and robiris. Like most naturalists, Mr. E. W. Hendy prides himself on his amateur status, and tilts (as practically every naturalist does) against the " scientific card-index compilers " ; though he does admit, of modem scientific investigation into bird-life, that " much of it is of great value both to ornithologists and to amateur bird-lovers." This curious assump- tion, that the aesthetic and scientific attitudes to nature are opposite rather than complementary, is found in the writings of many naturalists today. There is a very prevalent idea that Science is a pompous governess interfering with, or dictating the nature of, the innocent expeditions and observations of the amateurs. When pro- testing against the assumption that no approach, other than that of modern science, to the study of birds is of any importance, Mr. Hendy protests too much, Mr. Hendy's investigations of the lives of chaffinches, blue tits and other birds, which he studied by mark- ing the birds with coloured rings, are good science ; and his accounts of them .excellent. But apparently his own personal powers of accurate observation and precise recording are not enough to persuade him that if a poet can be scientific, a scientist can also be poetic.
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