New Books To Read

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page IX (Supplement)

New Books To Read

By Jeanne Lander.

I was looking for two books to read the other day—one I wanted to read for pure enjoyment and the other I felt I wanted to learn something from—but to enjoy at the same time! So somebody found me two splendid new ones. “Pony Tracks,” by Elizabeth Sprigge (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode), was the first and I enjoyed it so much that I forgot to h.ave my tea and went on reading it till bedtime! It is the story of children and ponies iu the New Forest. Wether or not you have a pony yourself, you would love "Endless” and her foal, and you will wish you could join the “Forest Fellowship" which the children in the tale form. There are adventures with dogs and gipsies as well as with the ponies—especially when the lovely "Endless” loses her foal. It is all so real that it is not surprising to find that the author wrote the book with her own children in Hie New Forest. Lionel Edwards has contributed 10 beautiful full-page illustrations of forest scenes and ponies, which he also drew from life on the epot, and this is much of the joy of the book.

The other book was a new edition of one 1 have been meaning to read for a long time — “New Zealand Birds and How to Identify Them,” by Perrine Moncrief (Whiteombe and Tombs). Have you ever wanted to know the name or the habits of a strange bird in your garden, or of the bush songsters? Many a time I have wanted to know more about some little feathered chap. The book tells you first of all about birds in general, and there is an interesting section on bird observation which you will find very useful if you are a keen bird-lover. Even if you have no more than a slight interest in binds,