we all know, "so far as abnormal migrants are concerned, Devonshire can compare favourably with any other county."
This book is not a monograph of the birds of Devonshire, it does not describe the contents of cabinet drawers, but details the observations of a field ornithologist; it is an avian handbook for the county, and, as such, should be procured and read. We are glad to find that the Peregrine Falcon is still indigenous to Devonshire. "Notwithstanding almost ceaseless persecution, the bird somehow manages to hold its ground, and eyries are situated here and there along the coast." Mr. Dixon is very optimistic as to the little destructive effect on some main features of our avian fauna made by the construction of railway lines. He instances the many birds to be seen close to the line as the train rushes through Devonshire, an observation we have made ourselves both in that county and abroad. He concludes: "there can be little doubt that railways would never have exterminated the Great Bustard from the open wolds and plains, and its absence must be ascribed to far more direct causes." Alas! for two of our old Devonshire friends, the Chough and the Jackdaw. The first is not now known by the author to have any breeding station on the south coast, and "whether the species will ever again recover itself in the county seems doubtful." The decrease of the Jackdaw may possibly be attributed to the numbers shot by the owners of Pigeons, which are attacked by the Daws.
The volume is full of interesting ornithological facts and observations; but how can either author or publisher imagine that such a publication unprovided with an index can ever serve a referential purpose?
Mr. Vaughan Kirby is well known as an experienced and successful hunter of South African animals, and, although the sportsman appears in the pages of the above work in rather an inverse ratio to that of the naturalist, we still obtain much of that zoological information which can only be procured by those who have the health, inclination, and opportunity to wander, rifle
