Very Good Books on Birds To anyone who is not

already familiar with Lord Grey's reminiscences of birds it is quite impossible to convey the personal charm evident in every page of his latest book, so felicitously named The Charm of Birds. In his preface Lord Grey characteristically disclaims any intent to instruct the reader, or to tell the ornithologist anything he didn't know before ; and it were not merely idle, but presumptuous, to suggest the contrary. "This writer," you say to yourself, "may or may not be an expert on birds, I do not much care. What interests me is the way he writes about them ; his rare gift of sympathy is worth all the knowledgeable theorizing in the world." Thus before the first chapter has been inwardly digested a spell is- woven. And then, of course, -you must go right on with it, in a mixed company of singing notes and wings, until you fall asleep and dream of "a blackbird lying on its side with one wing uplifted, so that the warm sun may

penetrate through the small soft feathers of the body " ; or of Mr. Lloyd George gradually turning into some queer sort of warbler in a barber's shop. Here is the beginning of a little story about the taming of a robin : "There is a white seat by another pond, where it is the habit for some one to sit about mid-day to feed such waterfowl as care to come out of the water for bread. On the right of this seat and close to it is a clump of dogwood. Here in February, 1924, a robin and his mate were tamed. The male bird would sit on the hand and eat several meal-worms; the female would only perch for a moment,

atc.h_a_sipgle„ sactel,viorm at a time and fly, off wittLit.. . In

femakt ;Gaming to the-seat-And- the-male wOulti-pack`:

JuS"beak with mea1wonns,fiy with them over the water to Mine

bushes a hundred yards away, and return time after time to get more."

If there are any bird-lovers who do not want to know more about that pair of robins they had better go away to a lonely oasis in the African desert and study ostriches.

"Manuals that collect and bring up to date what is known about every sort of British bird are invaluable. Howard Saunders is an example of this category." That is what Lord Grey says of the second book reviewed in this column; while explaining that his own is nothing of the sort, and there seems no reason why his admirably succinct note should not be used here. One can only add that this third edition of Howard Saunders's Manual, revised and beautifully produced, has appeared opportunely and is welcome.

Mr. Edmund Selous's book takes the form of a diary recording the activities, mainly nuptial, of the bird-world, from the family life of avocets on the "polders" of Holland to the ,` little lyric frenzies of the wheatear " in its May flights on the lift, but though his descriptions bear the authentic stamp of patient observation—Mr. Selous is wise, and puts no faith, in recollection—this is mach more than a mere record of things seen. Surely few writers have ever given us a clearer view into their own .minds through the enthralling avenues of nature- observation than we find here ! Even when telling the long, detailed story of the ruff's courtship—a biological discovery of some value—he can write like this : "The scene is now most interesting. . . . Birds dart like lightning over the ground, turn, crouch, dart again, ruffle about each demure- looking, unperturbed little attraction, spring at each other, and then, as if the earth were inadequate as a medium of emotional expression, Xi80 into the Kir and dart round Overhead on the wing. The air resounds with the frequent dull shocks of bodies and the violent 'whirring of wings. It is all motion, all energy at the very fevor- point of excitement, and then, all at once, a sudden cessation, .alMost a _sudden: death---.--orily the-Tea-theii-- of each birirs back-to be seen, or the tops of their head-gear, ruff, or fail-featfieniwaving here and there in the wind, as they lie in tense rigid immobility, like so many little bows of Ulysses, bent by themselves and ready, each moment, to spring back.'

Or like this, of herons :

" In situ' before the shadows flee away. It was snowing

and the ground-all white as I came &Wm The rhododendrons make a canopy white above and green below as I sit. A heron flies silently into one of the nests I watched yesterday, and stands on it, humped up anct-thOpingly, like a borogroye:"_ -

It would be possible to quote from a hundred passages of equal interest with these, but it is enough to say that the book

is packeil fug and sic*" with the -stuff that -every "practical naturalist delights in. Net the least amusing of its surprises is Mr: Selous's,,cir his publishers', new *ay Of spelling "iobin.7 • Readers of these excellent articles on natural history subjects which appear anonyinously in the Times will recognize in Mr. Collett one Of their most -entertaining writers and should be • grateful to him for having rescued so much good matter from ' the obscurity of" the " dead 7 .nevispapei file. Here are the

• months portrayed; one by one, in terms of bird life, and the result is a very charming gallery of living works of art.

H. M.