This small but beautifully illustrated book is the verbatim diary of a three months' sojourn in the Arctic regions in 1897. It does not add much to the knowledge of scientific ornithology, but it will be read with pleasure by all lovers of birds. It is no small advantage to now and again meet with a naturalist who really loves his subject, and is not merely a describer of species, a critical nomenclator, or a resurrectionist in archaic technicalities. Dan Meinertzhagen was none of these things; his birds were evidently to him living realities, and subjects for a very considerable artistic capacity, as plates in this volume bear witness. One of the most original observations we have met in these pages does not refer to birds at all. "It is a curious fact that pine and fir trees, when they rot while standing, warp from right to left, and birch from left to right. This is almost invariably the case."
An Appendix on the "Mottisfont Birds" relates to one of the largest collections of living Eagles and raptorial birds in this country, formed by Meinertzhagen, and located at Mottisfont Abbey, on the Test, near Romsey, the residence of his father. This young ornithologist died last year, at the early age of twenty-three.
