Bird Studies, an Account of the Land Birds of Eastern North America

Abstract

IF it be permissible to judge from the books with which they are respectively supplied, there must be an inherent constitutional difference between the English and the American reader of popular bird-lore. In almost all the numerous works written for the benefit of the former there is a more or less rigid adherence to a systematic arrangement of some kind or other. As we have had previous occasion to remark, American books, on the other hand, are characterised by their partiality for methods of arrangement other than systematic. Personally we confess to a deep-rooted prejudice in favour of the English plan; but if American readers find this too cut and dried for them, and prefer some less inelastic classification, little fault can be found with the writers who endeavour to gratify their taste.

Bird Studies, an Account of the Land Birds of Eastern North America.

By W. E. D. Scott. 4to, pp. xii + 363. (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898.)