BIRDS OF THE WATER, WOOD, AND WASTE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3305, 25 August 1911, Page 7

BIRDS OF THE WATER, WOOD, AND WASTE.

AN INTERESTING WORK

Yve have received from Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., a. copy of “Birds of the Water, Wood, and Waste,” by H. Guthrie-Smith. This interesting work contains eighty unique photographs and photogravures from life, and is nicely bound in full stiff cloth and gilt lettered. Perhaps the most fascinating of all hobbies is tlie study cf bird life in its native habitat. Birds vie with flowers in the interest they excite and in the grip they get of the heart of man. Happy indeed is tli© bird-lover who has at. once the leisure and the opportunity to indulge his bent, so that the author of “Birds of the Water, Wood and Waste” is no less to be envied for the opportunities offered him than he is to be commended for the admirable manner in which he has turned them to account. “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,” that is to say, some twenty-five miles north of Napier, lies Tutira, an estate of lake and. hill and valley, terraced flats and swamp unevenly .clothed with bush and scrub, tussock, flax and raupo, that gives sanctuary to a considerable variety of interesting native birds. Undisturbed save by tli© -peaceful shepherd and the enthusiastic naturalist ..armed with no more deadly weapon than an innocent kodak and an insatiable curiosity, this ,spot is a veritable, “Garden of Eden” to its feathered inhabitants. The author is an investigator inspired by genuine love of Nature’s children. Kingfishers, ducks, wckas, pukekos, harriers, falcons, groundiaries, fanitaiJs, wax-eyes, warblers, fern-birds, tuis and pigeons are all brought under close observation and an. interesting store of information recorded with regard to each- Eighty unique photographs from life taken, by a naturalist with an artist’s eye for the effective setting of a picture, illustrate a work that no one with any interest in, the, Dominions, native fauna can afford to he without. The' price of the book has been fixed at 7,» 6d. t