Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/151

Rh visited the Bustards on the plains near the Guadalquiver, tried Russian Lapland, has just started on a Persian expedition, and in this small volume gives the principal incidents of a journey made "to add to our knowledge of the birds and beasts of the Soudan."

These pages have the merit of giving a very fair impression of the neighbourhood of the ancient river, with its modern railway, its sandy plains, its few trees, and apparently its limited bird fauna. To have reached this hunting-ground would have a few years ago been considered the work of a "traveller"; it will soon be only the starting-point for a journey to British possessions farther south, where the solitude of the green veld will be exchanged for the silence of the sandy desert. The author's greatest success appears to have been the acquisition of a rare and beautiful Goatsucker (Caprimulgus eximius), of which we read that up to that time only four specimens were known, but of which since that date the Rothschild and Wollaston party have discovered a spot where it is fairly common, and procured no fewer than some fifteen examples. A list of the birds collected and observed is appended, and also one of the mammals contributed by Mr. de Winton.

our volume for 1897 (p. 486) we drew attention to the commencement of this excellent publication, as much a contribution of good work as of private enterprise in the cause of ornithology. We have now received the conclusion of the "Birds," with an intimation from the author that he does not intend publishing the memoirs of the other vertebrates, as he is doing that work for the Victorian History of the County. We hope, however, that in a few years Mr. Steele-Elliott will return to his self-imposed task, and give us the complete description of the fauna which he has so well begun. At all events, his present instalment affords a history of the birds of Bedfordshire.