13 OCTOBER 1888, Page 42

A Year in the Fields. By John Watson. (David Douglas,

Edinburgh.)—A vigorous and loving description of the gradual advance and decay of insect and vegetable life, with the annual movements of birds. Birds, indeed, the writer chiefly concerns himself with, and to a naturalist they are the most fascinating of all studies. The writer's caution as to describing natural phenomena as they are, and not as they should be, applies par- ticularly to birds ; so much so, that he tells us that his history refers to 1886. It seems hard that in writing an annual history of Nature, it should be necessary to date it ; but this is neverthe- less true. The writer speaks in one place as if he had it hankering after partridges in August.