The Borders and Beyond: Arctic, Cheviot, Tropic

Abstract

THIS book is a fine record of personal observation of wild life at home and abroad, and sets forth the opinions arrived at by the author as the result of many years of practical experience of his subjects. He opens by discussing many points of interest in the life of the red grouse and other game birds. Faced with such questions as “Do grouse drink?” Mr. Chapman does riot need to weigh the pros and cons or to meet opposing arguments: he simply knows, and has known from boyhood, that grouse do drink, and he can tell us how, and when, and where, with a wealth of circumstantial detail. Not least interesting are the chapters on what Mr. Chapman calls the “globe spanners,” those species of waders, particularly, which breed only on the Arctic tundras but migrate so far as South Africa, Patagonia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. He knows some of them in their northern homes and on their migrations in Spain and in Africa, but especially he knows them on passage on the Northumbrian coast. Various aspects of wild-fowling are also dealt with, and it is only a wild-fowler who readily becomes familiar with such birds as the brent goose. Further chapters are devoted to “salmonology,” and finally the author sums up his far from complimentary views about modern zoology and bird protection laws respectively.

The Borders and Beyond: Arctic, Cheviot, Tropic.

By Abel Chapman. Pp. xxi + 489 + 35 plates. (London and Edinburgh: Gurney and Jackson, 1924.) 25s. net.