ILLUSIONS ABOUT BIRDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 136, 11 June 1927, Page 22

ILLUSIONS ABOUT BIRDS.

The greater part of Mr. G. M. Nicholson's latest book upon bird life is devoted to tlie reason for and analysis of bird music. "How Birds Live" (Williams and Norgate) has come like a rare migrant to New Zealand, and, dealing only with English birds, will find few readers who are not naturalists of worldwide interests. Mr. Nicholson writes at length to prove that birds are practically sexless throughout winter months; that they live rather by instinct than .eason; that their song is merely a noise to warn off possible bird intruders from a selected area of country; that they are quite unconscious of personal beauty; that their mortality statistics are mostly on the tragic side; and that food—first, last, and all the time—is the' problem of existence in birdland. All the attractive, quaint, and lovable ideas which women and children and some men have connected with the conduct of birds, are destroyed by the merciless accuracy of scientific observation. Mir. Nicholson is gentle only with the "sub-song," the little gurgling throaty noises or halfsuppressed notes as if a bird held conversation with itself. What this means, and what the promptings, the author hesitates to say, but we are ourselves content to accept the nightingale as musical in song or sub-song, although Mr. Nicholson says this beloved of the poets has as harsh a voice as any bird in the country when it is used in challenge.