Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/367

Rh vertebrates, birds hold the same position as the Lepidoptera in the invertebrates; they are ever popular, and evidently appeal to the æsthetic sense. In any smoking-room men can be found who can say something about birds, while other animals, save such as appertain to sport, are too often distinctly caviare. We may therefore be thankful to ornithologists for always keeping their lamps trimmed, and sustaining a general interest in zoology. One seldom reads a county book on birds without meeting with new or little-known facts, and this publication is no exception. Thus we are told that our old friend Corvus frugilegus often exhibits a preference for a particular tree in a rookery. "At Wythenshawe, Mr. J.J. Cash has counted forty nests in a single sycamore, which comes into leaf earlier than the surrounding elms and beeches."

The volume is embellished with six photogravure illustrations, and a map of the county.

book may be described as a charming reverie on the Sussex downs by a naturalist. These bracing and rolling highlands are appreciated by two classes of visitors—the artist and the naturalist. The first absorbs the wild and somewhat monotonous scenery, and returns with a landscape engraven on his heart; the second patiently endeavours to read Nature's hieroglyphics, and to many, probably, appears as a lone and strange creature, like the local shepherd. Jefferies was the apostle of this method, and has evidently founded a school of thought which writes in prose what some of the older poets felt and sang in verse. But we shall never receive in print the deepest thoughts that Nature sometimes imparts; these things are fugitive, and never written. It is only a legend that the finest impressions of humanity may be found in books; the individual who might wish to print what should be unutterable is certainly outside the musings of the Sphinx. After all, the naturalist can only record facts; of his impressions he knoweth not whither they come or go. We would all gladly recall, if we could, some of these mysterious whisperings, but the quest is too often futile. Zool. 4th ser. vol. IV., July, 1900.