Essays on Early Ornithology and Kindred Subjects

Abstract

THE author has been diving in the rather muddy waters of early crnithology, and displays some of his treasures in a beautifully printed book. Marco Polo's rukh holds a position in bird-lore intermediate between the utterly fanciful and the badly misinterpreted, say between the Phoenix and the apodous Birds of Paradise. A mythological stream, taking its rise from the simourgh of the Persians, and a matter-of-fact stream, taking its rise from observations on some sea-eagle, united into one, which “floated the conception of the rukh.” An anonymous narrative of the first voyage (1497) of Vasco da Gama to India contains a reference to the penguins and seals of what is now called Mossel Bay. A hundred years afterwards a scurvy-stricken ship found in an island in the bay “many birds called Pyncuins and Sea Wolves, that are taken with men's hands” (the baby Otaria pusilla?). The third study deals with the birds of the Banda Islands, where nutmeg-trees flourish; the fourth discusses the etymology of the name “Emu,” the suggestion being that the Portuguese changed the Arabic name of the cassowary, “Neâma,” into “uma etna.” The identification of Australian birds mentioned by Dutch explorers in 1697 and of New Zealand birds observed by Crozet in 1772 has all the fascination of a clever game. Mr. McClymont's studies are what we should call luxuries, but they have the merit of scholarship and brevity. There are three fine plates, showing Casuarius uniappendiculatus, Blyth (juv.), from the British Museum; Hulsius's figure of an “Erne,” an immature cassowary with two wattles, probably Casuarius gdkeatus, Vieill.; and a Masked or iBlue-faced Gannet (Sula cyanaps, S. personata): from the Royal Scottish Museum.

Essays on Early Ornithology and Kindred Subjects.

J. R.

McClymont

By. Pp. vii + 35 + 3 plates. (London: Bernard Quaritch, Ltd., 1920.) 6s.