Natural History and Sport

Abstract

(1)IT is now six years since the publication of Captain Shelley's great monograph of the birds of Africa was suspended by the illness that overtook and ultimately proved fatal to the author. Fears, however, that the work might remain unfinished were happily allayed by the announcement that Mr. W. L. Sclater had undertaken to carry it on to completion. Several years elapsed before the final arrangement could be made, and it was not until 1912 that Mr. Sclater was able to bring out the volume under notice, which deals with the Lanii or drongos and shrikes, and is the second part of the fifth volume. This part is in every way up to the standard of its predecessor, and shows that Captain Shelley could not have committed the task to more competent hands than those of Mr. Sclater, who has a genius for sys-tematic ornithology. The book would certainly have been improved and its cost not greatly increased by the addition of a few outline figures in the text to illustrate some of the structural characters of the birds; but the eight coloured plates drawn by that competent draughtsman and greatly improved bird-artist Mr. A. Grönvold are excellent. Apart from the systematic descriptions and the useful analytical identification keys, a full account of the known distribution of every species is given, and its habits, where observed, have been duly recorded.