Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/118

94 muddy bottom in great numbers." This monograph not only describes the American remains, but also those of the Jurassic lithographic limestones of Solenhofen, the Permian fossils of Saxony, and those belonging to the Cambrian age in Northern Europe and Bohemia. With the usual ample, we might almost say lavish, manner with which these American governmental publications are issued, this volume is embellished with no fewer than forty-seven plates.

volume consists of a reprint of pen-and-ink sketches of British birds, with short descriptive notes, contributed by the author weekly during the last ten years to the 'Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.' From an introduction, written by Mr. Charles Dixon, we learn that the author from his childhood has been a lover of bird-life: "And this seems only natural, for he is the son of Robert Duncan, the Newcastle taxidermist, and was consequently brought up in an ornithological atmosphere, and in a house where the family talk was almost invariably about birds."

Consequently this is neither what may be called exactly a work of science, nor a book of reference. It is, however, a publication which in its lengthy serial form must have drawn many of the ardent Newcastle politicians who read the 'Newcastle Weekly Chronicle' away from the views of both Joseph Cowen and John Morley to a more peaceful study of bird-life.

It is a book that many will buy who have never heard of Howard Saunders or his 'Manual,' and therefore will reach a reading public to whom more scientific ornithology is a stranger.

The work has been revised by Mr. Dixon, and is a real standard of skill and industry combined with a true love of nature.