Abstract
THAT many persons in India especially new arrivals, feel the want of an easy means of identifying the commoner birds of the country is indisputable, and this want the auther of the booklet before us has endeavoured to supply—largely in the form of nones in scientific and other journals. In the main, the notices are interesting and to the point; but there appears a lack of judgment in regard to the species selected for mention. The omission of the adjutant stork is a glaring instance of this; while in the section on herons it is obvious that the egret or —paddy-bird” should have figured as the main heading, in place of the ordinary British heron. Then, again, it is a mistake to have selected such birds as the heron, moorhen, and barn-owl as the subjects for pictorial illustration, when so few characteristic Indian species are depicted. Neither can much be said in praise of the illustrations themselves, that of the myna being specially poor. By the time the book reaches a second edition, it may also be hoped that the author will have learnt to write sentences of a more grammatical type than the one standing second in the account of the jungle-babbler, or the third and fourth (taken together) on the seventh page.
Familiar Indian Birds.
By Gordon Dalgliesh. Pp. viii + 71; illustrated. (London: West, Newman and Co., 1907.) Price 2s. 6d. net.
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L., R. Familiar Indian Birds . Nature 76, 564 (1907). https://doi.org/10.1038/076564c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/076564c0
