NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
This is a book to be welcomed by ornithologists; its authors are naturalists of repute; it has received assistance from most Irish ornithologists; Mr. R.M. Barrington has supplied much unpublished information collected from light-keepers; the records reproduced have been well sifted, and the whole book exhibits a scientific method that may serve for imitation by some writers of county faunas. Thompson's 'Natural History of Ireland,' which still contained the greatest treatise on Irish ornithology, was published some fifty years ago, and the present book will naturally now succeed if for present-day information.
Of birds that have ceased to be residents are the Crane, the Great Auk, and the Capercailzie; on the other hand, the Magpie, first reported in Ireland towards the end of the seventeenth century, has spread rapidly, "and is now to be seen everywhere, except on the barest moorlands." The Starling has increased as a breeding species, and the steady extension of this bird's "summer range in Ireland is of a piece with what has taken place in Scotland"; Woodcocks have greatly increased in the Irish woodlands during the summer; and the Mistle-Thrush, of which the first Irish example known to Thompson was shot in 1808, is now "resident, common, and widely distributed." The Tufted Duck is also another bird which, during the last twenty years, has extended its breeding range, while a similar remark applies to the Stock-Dove, so that at least the feathered population of Ireland is not diminishing.
It is cheerful for English naturalists of our south coast to read that in Ireland no bird is more characteristic of the cliff-scenery than the Chough, and "in no country probably does it flourish in its natural strongholds more undisturbed." Although
