Bird - Life in England. By Edwin Lester Arnold. (Chatto and Windas.)—The
contents of this book hardly answer to its name. There is a great deal in it about the killing of birds, and very little about their life. No doubt the intelligent sportsman will find it read- able enough, and the strong views held by its author in favour of game. preserving, which are well supplemented by a summary of the game-laws in other countries, will find favour in the eyes of all owners of game. But neither the ornithologist nor the chance reader will find much in the way of natural history to interest him. The former will observe with alarm that in the fourth line of the introduction the names of two eminent ornithologists are misspelt ; that Morris is everywhere warmly praised, while Yarrel (sic) is quoted as the author of "The History of Foreign Birds ;" and that in the chapter on "Bird-Books," Mr. H. Seebohm is alluded to only as the author of "Siberia in Asia." Such faults, however, of omission or commission might easily be forgiven, if the book did but contain a little that is new about the habits of birds. What there is deals almost entirely with their food, and consists largely of extracts from other books and from periodicals. To have these collected together in an agreeable manner is, however, at least convenient, and the sparrow, the woodpigeon, and other so-called " destructive " birds may thank Mr. Arnold for bringing together a good deal of evidence on their behalf. We must add that Mr. Brodie-Innes con- tributes a chapter on "Grouse-Moors and Deer-Forests," of which the general tendency may be gathered from the following sentence : —" To assert, as is often done now, that the glens were cleared of men to make room for sheep, is to display the sheerest ignorance or wilful perversion of fact respecting the economic conditions."
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