Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/309

Rh Jas. Newton Baskett. Some coloration seems to be regarded by the author as of a survival nature. "The modern birds have come out of an unknown region, bringing with them their desire to get back—and their eggs marked to suit the foreign surroundings.... The bird which in the Arctics long ago may have lined its nest with green moss or grey lichens, may now floor it with flax in Dakota, or pad it with cotton in Texas; and yet in either deposit a solid green or mottled greyish egg in keeping with the colours of 'the old house at home.'"

Another instructive memoir is that by J.J. Quelch "On the Birds of British Guiana." The birds of this habitat have very pronounced features, such as the large number of species, the marked abundance of the individuals of a species, and an astonishing brilliance of plumage. Food relations are also peculiar: many Hawks examined at different times of the year, and in different places, have revealed only a diet of moths, beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, leaves, and fruit. The vultures, Cathartes, in the forest districts, contain almost invariably a preponderance of fruit and leaves; while Mycteria, the Giant Stork, in the depth of the dry and wet seasons lives on beetles, grasshoppers, and locusts. We must conclude a hasty survey by noticing the more personal contribution of Paul Leverkuhn, of Bulgaria, on "Ornithologists, Past and Present." The author possesses a collection of ornithologists' portraits "which is said to be the richest one in the world," and he is still desirous of receiving additions to his albums. It is well to know where such collections are amassed, and it is to be wished that copies of some may from time to time be published. How we would all value to-day the inspection of a portrait of Gilbert White of Selborne.

delightfully illustrated little volume is written by a true lover of birds, who, by protection and affording facilities for nesting, has during the last few years had no fewer than thirty-six "species of our wild birds nesting in and around my own garden.