Abstract
To the student who wishes to identify the birds of the British Isles, this book has no message; indeed it mentions by name only a very small proportion of the birds of Britain, and in this respect its title is misleading. But it brings together and classifies from a natural history point of view many odd items of information difficult of access to the majority of amateur ornithologists, yet needful for an intelligent interest in the structures and habits of our birds. The treatment of the facts is suggestive and speculative, and while speculation appears to the reviewer to be sometimes hasty and information occasionally inaccurate, there is great merit in the way in which unsolved problems are openly laid upon the table. Works of this type are much needed, since they may suggest to the amateur naturalist lines along which he may still make valuable contributions to science, at a time when the niceties of the racial discrimination of British birds have almost barred him from a field where once he held his own.
Birds of Great Britain and their Natural History.
By W. P. Pycraft. Pp. 206 + 17 plates. (London: Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 1934.) 7s. 6d. net.
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[Short Notices]. Nature 135, 776 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135776d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135776d0