Abstract
IF ornithologists have regretted the apparent retirement of Mr. Harting for the last few years from the field of scientific research, they will find on consulting the present volume that his devotion during that time to popular science has not impaired his powers, but has perhaps tended to increase the gift which he always possessed in a high degree, of being able to present to his readers the details of science in interesting and attractive language. We have been induced to make the above remarks, inasmuch as no one would suspect that under the above title is comprised a very complete monograph of the Struthionidæ from the pen of Mr. Harting, but such is really the case, for, out of a volume of some 250 pages, three-fourths are occupied with the history of the ostrich and its kindred. This portion of the work is entirely written by Mr. Harting, and, like everything he undertakes, is executed with thorough conscientiousness. The true Ostriches (Struthio) the Rheas (Rhea), the Emu (Dromæus), the Cassowaries (Casuarius) and the Apteryges are all passed in review, and a complete monographic account given of each; the history of the ostrich and its distribution in times past and present being very exhaustively compiled. We can heartily commend the illustrations in this volume, very good full-page drawings of the principal Struthious forms, having been designed by Mr. T. W. Wood, while the Zoological Society has allowed the woodcuts which have illustrated Dr. Sclater's various memoirs on the Struthionidæ to be utilised, so that a very complete monograph of these birds is the result.
Ostriches and Ostrich Farming.
By Messrs. De Mosenthal Harting. 8vo. pp. i.–xxii., 1–246. (London: Trübner and Co., 1876.)
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Ostriches and Ostrich Farming . Nature 15, 176 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/015176a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/015176a0