Three Voyagesqf a Naturalist. By M. J. Nicoll. (Withorby and
78. 6d. net.)—Few men get such opportunities as came to Mr. Nicoll,—to make three voyages in what is probably the best sea-going auxiliary screw yacht in existence. The 'Valhalla' is really a ship of seventeen hundred tons displacement, and there- fore capable of facing any weather. The voyagers were able to approach and land on mid-ocean islands which many an old sailor has only heard of, and others have only sighted. The landing at, and description of, South Trinidad, Martin Vas, and Tristan da Cunha give the reader a vivid impression of the isolation and ruggedness of these islands so familiar in name- to the sailor. The sea-fowl and, the peculiar land birds of these sequestered spots have an extraordinary interest for naturalists, for their barrenness and their smallness are no guides to the limits of the species or numbers of a species found on them. Even the isola- tion of these points of rook in an illimitable ocean does not prevent the occurrence of species on one island of a group serving to connect it with =other. And, again a group will have a species of bird peculiar to it, but one of the group will have the dis- tinction of a species- peculiar to it alone, as is the case in the Seychelles, with the comparatively sober sun-birds peculiar to the group, and one island having a special kind of its own. 'There are curious and fascinating items of information in -the voyages, though the reader must not sit down to them -with the expectation of having wild scenery and life described by a Darwin, a Wallace, a Bates, or a Waterton. Mr. Nicoll has too much ocean to navigate to be able to furnish more than thumbnail sketches of islands and expeditions in search of strange birds. Nevertheless, he gives us the impressions of vast watery spaces, weird islands surrounded by a halo of birds, rocky -shores, and stately scenery. The curious and the lover of travels will read greedily the accounts of St. Paul's Rook, the Straits of Magellan and the "steamer" duck, the Samoan Islands and -"kava." drinking, and the beautiful wooded landscapes of Tahiti. Above all, there is the wonderful atmosphere which the countless birds give to the shores of the Pacific and the South Atlantic. They and their marvellous adaptation to circumstances are, of -course, the feature of the book. One can try to figure for oneself the brilliant colouring of the island birds; the sea-fowl we know in port. The book is lavishly illustrated, and to the naturalist must be of quite unusual interest on account of the many new species described.
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