Abstract
MANY persons who are not skilled ornithologists take a considerable interest in birds, particularly those that visit their gardens, and they feel the need for a concise, well-written, well-illustrated, inexpensive book to help them recognize their garden inhabitants and visitors. This want has been supplied by Miss Barclay-Smith. She writes of the different types of gardens and the birds likely to be seen in them, of what can be done in the way of planting special trees and bushes to encourage birds, of the plants they like, about deterrent measures against cats, the provision of nesting boxes and how to make them, also the provision of nesting material, and lastly the necessity to supply food and water. Feeders are discussed and the food to be supplied, reference being made to the widespread idea that coco-nut may prove fatal to tits. She says, "it is open to doubt. It is, however, a good thing to spread the nut with lard occasionally to prevent it becoming too hard." The reviewer in pre-war days when coco-nuts were easily obtained always had two or three hung up for the benefit of the tits and never knew a bird any the worse. Miss Barclay-Smith goes on to give individual descriptions of some score of regular garden birds in Britain, her accounts being illustrated by twenty colour reproductions of plates from Gould's "Birds of Great Britain", which are ever vivid and fresh.
Garden Birds
By Phyllis Barclay-Smith. (King Penguin Book.) Pp. ii + 30 + 20 coloured plates. (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1945.) 2 s.
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P., F. Garden Birds. Nature 156, 34 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156034c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156034c0