Abstract
COUNTY lists of birds are still the order of the day. First we have Mr. Mansel-Pleydell's book on the Ornithology of Dorsetshire, a very neat little volume, compiled evidently with the greatest care. The author's long acquaintance with the country and his well-known love of natural history have rendered him the most competent authority on the subject, and he has been aided by many well-known naturalists in supplying him with instances of the capture of rare birds, so that the list is a very complete one. The inevitable Great Black Woodpecker (Picus martius) of course appears, on Pulteney's authority, but no recent specimen is extant, nor is likely to be. The Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps), which was first recorded by ourselves as a British bird, is placed between brackets, and considered to be “extremely doubtful” by the author. All we can say is that we should not have been godfather to the specimen, to add one more doubtful species to the already overburdened British list, unless we had felt tolerably certain of its authenticity, while the fact of the specimen being immature renders its occurrence as a chance wanderer much more probable than if it had been an adult bird in breeding-plumage. The bird has ten times more claim to a place amongst our stragglers than such species as Picus medius, Pycnonotus barbatus, and dozens of others. A most interesting history is given of the celebrated swannery at Abbotsbury, with a photographic plate, in which the birds are well depicted, but the keeper's face lacks expression! Some pretty woodcuts by Mr. Lodge are interspersed in the text. The author informs us that Puffinus obscurus (p. 113) should be P. griseus.
The Birds of Dorsetshire: A Contribution to the Natural History of the County.
By J. C. Mansel-Pleydell, &c. 8vo. pp. i–xvi., 1–179. (London and Dorchester: R. H. Porter, 1888.)
Notes on the Birds of Herefordshire, contributed by Members of the Woolhope Club.
Collected and Arranged by the late Henry Graves Bull., &c. pp. i–xxxii., 1–274. (London and Hereford: Jakeman and Carver, 1888.)
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SHARPE, R. Our Book Shelf . Nature 38, 125 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/038125a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/038125a0