Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 6 (1902).djvu/462

396 looked at the bird with my glass, and, alas! satisfied myself (!!) that it was Picus tridactylus; but the moment I saw the beautiful eggs brought to daylight I suspected an error, and went back to the boat to fetch my gun, and shot the bird. It turned out to be, as I anticipated, P. minor." Even now we can read with enthusiasm the facts as to the breeding habits of the Waxwing (Ampelis garrulus), which Wolley was the first to master and describe; while we are told that up to the time of his departure for Lapland in 1853 considerable uncertainty remained as to the colouration of the Redwing's egg.

It will interest aviculturists to learn that the same observer noticed in a wild Snow-Bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis) that "she was suffering badly from a distressing complaint, well known to those who keep birds in confinement as 'asthma.'"

References also recur to some well-known names of those now with us no more. We read of Salvin, and he is gone. Hewitson also is mentioned as a good oologist, and it is probable that his reputation as such will outlast his notoriety as a famous butterfly collector and monographer, a pursuit which occupied all the last years of his life. Altogether the notes in this volume constitute sufficient material for a whole series of modern books on birds, and, the editing being done by Prof. Newton, the records require no further elucidation. There are four coloured plates of eggs, four plates depicting boreal scenes, a portrait of Wolley, and one of L.M. Knoblock, who seems to have been a conscientious professional collector, with a first-hand knowledge of birds.

part is the concluding publication detailing the results obtained by a memorable expedition; for when the Managers of the Balfour Studentship in the University of Cambridge can despatch an expedition with the avowed object of procuring material for the study of the embryonic development of the Pearly Nautilus, we may safely realize that the real biological