Abstract
THIS little volume belongs to “The Library of Useful Stories,” now in course of issue by the publishers; and although it must have been difficult to compress a general review of the leading facts of bird-life into such a small compass, the author may be congratulated on the success of his attempt. As Mr. Pycraft is a morphologist rather than a systematist, it would naturally be expected that he would incline rather to the morphological and phylo-genetic aspects of his subject, and this we find to be the case. We have, for example, an excellent chapter on the morphology of the bird's wing, while two others treat of avian pedigree, and a third is devoted to the distribution of birds in space and time. Perhaps the most specially interesting chapter in the volume is the one dealing with the flightless birds and their fate, since this is a subject on which the author is peculiarly qualified to speak with authority.
The Study of Bird-Life.
By W. P. Pycraft. Pp. 240. Illustrated. (London: George Newnes, Ltd. 1900.)
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
L., R. The Study of Bird-Life . Nature 62, 221 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/062221a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/062221a0