Manual of the Birds of Iceland

Abstract

MR. Slater has very acceptably filled the want, which many of us have felt, of a handy manual on the birds of Iceland. Mitch information on the subject is to be found scattered among Icelandic, Danish, German, Latin and English books and periodicals (the bibliography in the present volume comprises more than sixty titles), and this has now been revised and condensed in a compendious, handy form. Added to this we have now the personal observations made by the author in the occasional visits he has paid to Iceland during the last fifteen years, making altogether the most (indeed the only) complete account of the birds of this out-of-the-way corner of Europe which we possess Without ministering to the insatiable appetite of the egg collector by disclosing the exact breeding localities of the rarer birds, the author has striven to make his manual useful to the many English-men who go to Iceland every year for various purposes, and who may take some interest in its birds. Besides reviewing and recommending certain earlier accounts the ornithology, he names a good guide-book and some maps; and he gives a brief but useful description of the plumage of most of the birds (except those that are common and universally known) and also of the nests and eggs. In the introduction, too, we find some very necessary remark's on the English habit of misspelling and mispronouncing Icelandic words. And following this, and a statement upon the law as to the close-time for birds in Iceland, are three pages of most instructive suggestions on the right pronunciation of the language. All the species on the Icelandic list (one hundred and three, exclusive of eleven the occurrence of which doubtful, and one, the great auk, which is extinct) are clearly and accurately dealt with in the body of the work; and the native names of the birds, if any, are indicated. The volume is in truth a manual, and its handy size will enable any traveller, however light his baggage, to find room for it.

Manual of the Birds of Iceland.

By Henry H. Slater. Pp. xxiii + 150; 3 plates and map. (Edinburgh: David Douglas, 1901.) Price 5s. net.