Our Country's Birds, and How to Know Them. By W.
J. Gordon. (Day and Son.)—This is the most complete description of the birds of Britain which has yet appeared in so small a compass, and the arrangement, descriptions, plates, and comments are at once practical and interesting. For the purpose of identifying birds when shot, or skins received from local collectors, it could hardly be improved. In 150 pages the author gives a well-executed series of coloured plates of the birds, a clear essay on classifica- tion as a means of identification by an ingenious set of tables and references, a complete account of the various orders and families, and clever woodcuts of the structure of feathers and skeletons. The lists of local names, often rare or very ancient, will be useful both to naturalists in remote districts and to students. Caliban's " young seaminols from the rock' can be identified as the bar- tailed godwit, and the impossibility of the chough or any bird like a chough being "russet-pitted," iu Shakespeare's phrase, if " russet" means reddish-brown, can be seen from a glance at the pages of plates. Short but accurate descriptions of tho eggs are included, and the verbal sketches of the different species and their habits are vivid and, lively, showing much original observation. Even in a notice of five lines Mr. Gordon generally contrives to emphasise some prominent characteristic of the bird ho describes. For instance, ".The shag swims low and dives magnificently, swimming under the surface for long distances with both wings and feet, and so deep does it go that it has been caught in a crab- pot one-hundred and-twenty feet down." The characteristic flight of each species is described, and the appearance on the wing, a means of identification quite necessary but neglected by most naturalists. The book is original throughout, written in vigorous, homely English, with nothing sketchy or sentimental about it, and suggests a fund of knowledge beyond that which is allowed to appear.
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