9 APRIL 1898, Page 24

Our Favourite Song - Birds. By Charles Dixon. (Lawrence and Bullen. 7s.

6d.)—To choose some thirty of our British birds, on ' account of their song, and to write a book about them, seems to us as senseless as to write biographies of "The Bachelor Kings of England." But, having selected this subject, Mr. Dixon has put together a series of pleasant accounts of the habits and charac- teristics of the different species. The book has no pretensions to be a scientific treatise, and does not contain much that is not to be found elsewhere. The illustrations have little merit, and the shiny paper on which they are printed does not improve them; they make one sigh for the days of Bewick and wood-cats.