NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
This is really a commentary on the history of British Birds; it is rather a notebook than a handbook; it expresses the author's mature opinion, and gives a reference to much of the information on which it is based; it is not apparently designed as an only book on the subject, but as an indispensable one among others. In classification Mr. Harting remains with the older writers, and commences with the Accipitres,—a matter needing little comment, as the book is outside the discussion of an evolutionary principle on that subject, and is devoted to the status of what may be considered really British Birds, and facts relating to their history.
Mr. Harting, as the late Editor of this Journal, is well acquainted with, and has largely quoted from its pages, most of the records having already passed through his hands. And here the difficulties of his authorship must have been accentuated. The responsibility of sifting such records, accepting some as beyond doubt, and rejecting others as of a more uncertain character, is considerable. The sceptre requires to be held with judicial tenacity, and kept from the grasp of caprice, whilst the sorrowful reflection cannot be avoided that some of the best observations are made by those who absolutely loathe publication, and whose knowledge thus remains of a purely personal character. The author has shown considerable indulgence in recording reports of British occurrences of the Great Black Woodpecker; these reports occupy three pages, and are subsequently said to be held by Prof. Newton, on the authority of Mr. J.H. Gurney's criticism in Dresser's 'Birds of Europe,' as almost worthless in nearly every instance.
There are many notes of an antiquarian character which give a particular interest to the volume; on entries found in the
