A NATURE BOOK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22006, 12 January 1935, Page 9 (Supplement)

A NATURE BOOK

" IDLINGS IN ARCADIA " Mr. E. D. Cuming has made a special study of birds, and he writes interestingly and informatively of them in his book, which also includes notes and anecdotes concerning beasts and fishes. Ho quotes from old writers, showing weird beliefs about the cures effected by the eating of mice, snakes and other efficacious remedies, and from the first book on natural history published in 1607, with its amusing stories, and guesses at facts imperfectly understood. The chapter on bird migration, that ever fascinating subject, is one of the most interesting to the bird lover, but the book is strangely lacking in beauty. Though teeming with interesting fact and reminiscence it is devoid of those gleams of romance and loveliness with which nature overflows but which many writers on natural history seem unable to translate into words. However, it is a readable .book spoiled by Mr. J. Shepherd's impossible illustrations, for the artist has no true feeling for birds and in presenting them in a comic light he has made a fiasco. A bird is never comic; it displays no sense of humour; and Mr. Cuming would do well to secure the services of an artist who has studied the bird world with sympathy. " Idlings in Arcadia," by E. D. Cuming. (Murray.)