Raine's Bird-nesting in North-west Canada

Raine's Bird-Nesting in North-West Canada.•--FromWllat we can gather this work has not as yet come into the hands of many of our professional ornithologists, nor has it up to the present time been reviewed in the pages of 'The Auk.' It is an octavo volume of al)ont two hundred pages, and its illustrations consist in the main of six colored plates of eggs of birds (6t species), together with nutnerous lithographs of birds, sceuery, and heads of mammals, and a variety of text-cuts.Both the colored and uncolored lithographs were drawn upon stone by the author himself, so lie is wholly responsible for them.Apparently Mr. Raine spent thctnonth of June, IS9•,in the Manitoban region, and the preseut book is arunning narrative of his doings there during tlmt time.From the 'Prefitce' we learn that though "the title of the book would lead readers to expect the work to he purely O61ogical, it will he found to treat on matter not strictly Ornithological.I have branched off and given descriptions of the habits of the more important animals inhabiting the region traversed, and have also given a desc[iption of the scenery between Toronto and Vancouver ....I have given accurate descriptions of the birds' eggs• and also given their measurements ....The book does not describe alllbe species which inhabit the Northwest, for many conlinen species kuown to 1)e suIYllner residents were not exren observed, and the songs of many warblers, vireos, sparrows, and other small birds were heard in the bluffs and along the wooded streams, but I could not recognize the species."It is evident fi-om all this that Mr. Raine claims for his book, first, a popular descriptive part; and secondly, a scientifically accurate o/51ogical part.We propose only to concern ourself with the latter, and that as briefly as possible.We would hardly even be expected here to take our author's ludicrous figre-es of birds and their nests into consideration, for both space and our time are altogether too yahruble to be sqnandered in any such manner.Judging from its unfeatbered tarsi, his figure of a Golden Eagle, for example, evidently does not represent that bit(t, and it •nay be cited as an average specimen of the work oœ this thoroughly unreliable artist.We turn first then to the six colored plates of the eggs.None of the,•e are nnmbered on theirlate, and as the figures on each ]•[ale rnn I, 2, 3 and soon, it renders it impossible to refer to any particular specimen either by nn•nber or plate.Personally, I have compared many of these colored drawings with large series of eggs of the species they are supposed to represent, and we tnay ,say, as a rule, they are, in the matters of outline, coloring, and measurements, highly inaccurate, and can in no way be depended upon.Lastly, this work is so pregnant with statements in regard to nests and eggs of birds which Mr. Raine alleges to have either seen or taken iu IBird-Nestingin Norfi•-Xgest Canada.

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