The Zoologist/4th series, vol 3 (1899)/Issue 699/Notices of New Books
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
This is a very welcome addition to our county faunistic handbooks. "The whole area of Shropshire is only about 1340 square miles, yet within this compass we have plateaus and plains, hills and vales, boggy flats and heathery moors, cornlands and pastures, wooded slopes and barren crags, meres and ponds, streams big and little, and—most important of all—the river Severn." Sea- and shore-birds are attracted by the meres, and the still reaches of the Severn, which river again is followed in its course by many birds—as Sandpipers—and fishes. Among the mammals enumerated, "the Wolf, the Roebuck, and the Wild Boar have been long extinct, and the Pine Marten disappeared this century; while the Polecat is on the verge of extinction"; the Wild Ox is also included, though this animal is now of antiquarian interest. Of birds 250 species are enumerated, of which 87 are classed as residents, 34 as summer migrants, 17 birds of passage, 40 winter migrants, and 72 as waifs or accidental visitors. Six reptiles (one of which, the Smooth Snake (Colonella lævis) is included, at present, on very slight authority); seven Amphibians, twenty-nine Fishes,—of which the Sea Trout (Salmo trutta) is now added by courtesy,—and three Lampreys (Lowest Vertebrates) complete the subject-matter of the volume.
One of the most interesting features of this book is to be found in the lives and portraits of Shropshire naturalists, which include such well-known names as Eyton, Kocke, and Houghton. Charles Darwin was also a Salopian, but his work was confined to no county and limited to no country. Another excellent idea is the printing of the names of resident birds in capitals, and of visitors and casual wanderers in ordinary type. To show the contrast, however, different coloured printing would greatly facilitate the aim. Other assistance is rendered by the letter B attached to a name, denoting "bred in Shropshire," while with migrants the average dates of arrival and departure are also given below the names. Many photographic plates of groups of excellently "set-up" mammals and birds give a distinctive charm to one of those volumes which are generally procured with avidity by students and lovers of our British fauna.
In the pages of this magazine there has appeared, from time to time, a series of papers by Mr. Phillips on the Birds of Breconshire. These were reprinted in 1882 for private circulation, and the same re-written and considerably enlarged it is now our pleasure to peruse and notice. "Breconshire is not a large county, and is so well known that it needs but a slight description. It embraces among its general features, in a marked degree, mountain and moor, valley and hill; it has one large lake, Llangorse, with numerous mountain tarns, and is drained by the Usk and partly by the Wye and their tributaries. Yet with all these advantages of nature the ornithology of the county is not so varied as might be supposed."
The Kite (Milvus regalis) up to the year 1889 had increased considerably, but in that spring many were killed, three or four close to the town. Even now, however (1899), a few pairs still breed, and are protected as far as possible in the county. The Marsh Harrier (Circus æruginosus), which was formerly common on the hills between the 'Storey Arms' and Merthyr, is now, unfortunately, supposed to be extinct. The Raven is generally considered to live to an old age, but it is well to obtain actual facts, and Mr. Phillips is able to refer to a bird which must have been fifty years old when it was killed by a dog. Severe cold causes strange messmates, and here we read of a Sparrowhawk roosting close by some Bantams in a thick holly-tree in the dead of winter; in similar weather a Jay was found feeding with the poultry in an aviary, where it must have pushed itself between the wires to get to the food. The varieties of food that birds and all animals sometimes indulge in is here represented by an interesting fact. A Heron was killed in a field close by a stream, and its crop was found to be filled with Field Mice. This volume is full of "natural history" facts and observations, and is one of the few enumerations of a fauna which, apart from its scientific value, can be read with absolute pleasure. It refers to 198 species of birds.
This is the second instalment and completion of an important contribution to a knowledge of entomology, by Dr. Sharp. The present volume includes the continuation of the Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Strepsiptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, Aphaniptera, Thysanoptera, Hemiptera, and Anoplura. The most distinctive contribution is that relating to the Coleoptera, an order to which the author has mostly devoted his time, and on which he is recognized as a considerable authority. The Coleoptera have long been classified in a somewhat archaic, if convenient, manner, and we are glad to see here a break from old tradition and a new arrangement proposed, commencing with the Lamellicornia, though these are separated from the Clavicornia by the Adephaga, a proposition which will probably be a more disturbing factor with many Coleopterists. These pages, however, are not the place for so purely a technical discussion, though the careful consideration of all proposed systems is generally pregnant to a further knowledge of the creatures on which such propositions are founded.
With the other orders much useful information abounds, though of course these lack the essential imprimatur which the special knowledge of the author gives to his treatment of the Coleoptera. The authorities quoted are naturally more selective than comprehensive, and although many references will be gladly appreciated by workers at these groups, the absence of other references is sometimes very accentuated.
We read that the number of described species of butterflies is probably about 13,000. Forty years ago the number known was not more than one-third or one-fourth of what it is at present, and hence Dr. Sharp does not consider it too much to anticipate that 30,000 or even 40,000 forms may yet be acquired. We quite agree with him, however, in the opinion that "the species of Rhopalocera seem to be peculiarly liable to dimorphic, to seasonal, and to local variation; so that it is possible that ultimately the number of true species—that is, forms that do not breed together actually or by means of intermediates, morphological or chronological—may have to be considerably reduced."
In the almost congested entomological literature of the present day, this work will long maintain a distinctly acknowledged individuality.
This is a polemic, but a valuable one. It is almost precisely on the lines and argument of Prof. Mcintosh's 'Resources of the Sea,' which was noticed recently in these pages (ante, p. 188), being a protest against the State's interference with man's livelihood by means of the fishing industry. Of course this is a very wide question. Is our supply of marine fishes seriously jeopardized by the action of the free use of the trawl and net? Many hold that it is, as, for instance, Prof. Herdman, who is treated in this reprinted lecture very frankly by Mr. Jackson, who, on the contrary, holds that the enormous fecundity of most marine animals is an all-sufficient protection against the destructive influence of man. We have described this publication as a polemic, but a valuable one. Its very strenuous advocacy makes it the first; its many excellent recorded facts and observations redeem it, and constitute it a welcome addition to the literature of the subject. Perhaps, however, the author was more concerned with the controversial element; still the natural history reader will probably forget the sorrows of the fishermen, and revel in the anecdotal details of the life-histories of his prey.
The main teaching of this book, and which will attract our readers, is how to observe the life-histories of fishes. We have excellent field-ornithologists who have acquired their knowledge direct from nature, but how few have directed the same attention to freshwater fishes. In a moderately deep stream it is not so easy to decide always whether a fish is a Trout or a Grayling. But here a knowledge of habits will decide the question. A Trout can keep still, a Grayling cannot. "The rough tests are size for Salmon, immobility for Trout, mobility for Grayling." If any one wants to know if there are Tench in a pool, "let him go and sit beside it some warm evening in June, just before it is dark, and then, if he hears a splashing among the water-plants, and sees the leaves disturbed, he can rest quite certain that there are Tench in the pool, and that they are spawning." And many other hints to the observer in a little-worked study is afforded, which should render a stream as full of interest as a wood, and prove that a knowledge of the habits of our fishes is not confined alone to a capacity for hooking them. We all know how an overhanging or adjacent tree or bush affords an insect banquet to a crowd of fishes in the stream. Mr. Bund gives a very practical example. "A stream comes down from the Welsh hills, which are open, bare, and uncultivated. A large larch plantation has been made. Above the plantation the Trout average seven to the pound; below they average five, and the difference in my opinion is entirely due to the quantity of food the plantation turns out into the river."
No one who wishes to successfully manage a fishery can afford to be without a precise knowledge of the habits and life-histories of fishes. This knowledge is seldom cultivated by angling preservationists. The writer of this notice, who in earlier days mixed much with anglers and pursued the craft, always found that he belonged to a brotherhood that knew how to catch, but was no match in real natural history of the subject with the village poacher, a worthy whose detested success is based on practical observation. Mr. Bund's book, besides detailing the secrets of Fishery Management, gives much information on a subject which is strikingly absent from 'The Zoologist' "Notes and Queries."
This small but beautifully illustrated book is the verbatim diary of a three months' sojourn in the Arctic regions in 1897. It does not add much to the knowledge of scientific ornithology, but it will be read with pleasure by all lovers of birds. It is no small advantage to now and again meet with a naturalist who really loves his subject, and is not merely a describer of species, a critical nomenclator, or a resurrectionist in archaic technicalities. Dan Meinertzhagen was none of these things; his birds were evidently to him living realities, and subjects for a very considerable artistic capacity, as plates in this volume bear witness. One of the most original observations we have met in these pages does not refer to birds at all. "It is a curious fact that pine and fir trees, when they rot while standing, warp from right to left, and birch from left to right. This is almost invariably the case."
An Appendix on the "Mottisfont Birds" relates to one of the largest collections of living Eagles and raptorial birds in this country, formed by Meinertzhagen, and located at Mottisfont Abbey, on the Test, near Romsey, the residence of his father. This young ornithologist died last year, at the early age of twenty-three.