THE BIRDS OF ICELAND.
The Birds of Iceland. By Henry H. Slater, M.A. (D Douglas, Edinburgh. 5s.)—Mr. Slater enumerates some foul hundred kinds of birds that are known or reputed to exist in Iceland. Many of them are occasional or rare visitants; of some it is even doubtful wkether they are still to be found in the island. Mr. Slater repeats the complaint, made, we are sorry to say, wherever Englishmen are found, of the purposeless massacre of birds that are not desired either as specimens or as food. He complains also of the practice of taking the eggs, now become so common that unless the Legislature interferes—there is a close time established by law, but it does not protect the egg—some species will become extinct. Yet he appears not to be consistent with himself. He describes, for instance, on p. 5, Troglodytes Borealis (Northern wren), and tells us that during fifteen visits he never saw the bird. But in 1900 he first heard and then saw one. Imme- diately he set to work looking for the nest. An old one he found, and then a new one, but, he goes on, "alas ! no eggs." Would he have taken them ? Then he goes on to describe how he tried to shoot the bird. We gather that he hit one but failed to find the bird ; his companion actually shot one. Surely this is very inconsistent; and when we turn back to p. 15, where the "Close Season for Birds in Iceland" Law is given, we find "wrens" among the birds that are not to be killed at all. There may be some explanation—we do not consider the desire to possess a specimen to be a valid reason—but at present it seems as if Mr. Slater's desire to reform his countrymen should begin at home.
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