The Handbook of British Birds

Abstract

THE third volume of this exhaustive work has just made its appearance, and is not inferior to its two successors in its high standard. The value of this volume is heightened by a number of admirable coloured sketches of geese by Peter Scott, his pictures of grey lags and of barnacle geese being particularly fine. Credit is also due to the producers of the book for having brought out so well the fine points of these sketches, always liable to be lost in reproduction. Mr. J. C. Harrison's delicate and masterly delineation of birds also finds a place in this volume. His plates (81 and 82) showing the adult males and females of British ducks in flight are delightful. No bird artist can excel Mr. Harrison in bringing to the mind the sense of movement in birds. His pintail and long-tailed ducks in flight are particularly attractive and he has caught the wise expression in the eye of the tufted duck—an expression which I often noticed in the tufted, duck of Fallodon-full-winged birds which had been tamed so completely by Lord Grey that they were entirely without fear.

The Handbook of British Birds

Vol. 3. (Hawks to Ducks.) By H. F. Witherby Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain Norman F. Ticehurst Bernard W. Tucker. Pp. x+388+plates 61–92. (London: H. F. and G. Witherby, Ltd., 1939.) 25s. net.