Catching good negatives of live birds in the open is not easy. One needs to know photography and bird habits extremely well, and then be satisfied with a thousand failures along with a few successes. This knowledge and patience have been remarkably displayed by the author in the profusion of full-page reproductions of his valuable work. The meadow lark's nest containing young birds is a most artistic plate. The tree toads clinging to their tree and the mother spider caught in the act of carrying her young in a silken ball are deserving of special commendation. His pair of cedar birds look particularly happy as they balance upon their twigs and eye the camera as if they knew all about it. Horned toads and whales, dragon flies and opossums, as well as many other forms of life, both common and rare, have their turn at entertaining the reader, and their inmost thoughts seem to have been read by this enthusiastic and peculiarly successful scientist. It is a good book for children of all ages, but wherever it is introduced into any family the younger children will uniformly have to wait till their elders have enjoyed it, for no age can be proof against its charms. =Birds of North America.= Illustrated Descriptive Manual to Beard's Natural History Charts. Potter & Putnam Company, 63 Fifth Ave., New York. This convenient little pamphlet contains brief descriptions of some of the most common birds, the eagle, the owl, the parrot, the crow, the turkey, the quail, the ostrich, the heron, the swan, and the penguin. It is closely printed with numerous illustrations of the structure and forms of the typical birds of each sort, and gives in language that can well be understood by children, the principal facts of interest. It is sold at 20 cents, and will be found valuable to a large class of teachers who are in search of material to interest their pupils in the common birds of our country. =Nests and Eggs of North American Birds=, by Oliver Davie, author of "Methods in the Art of Taxidermy," etc. The Landon Press, Columbus, Ohio. This is the fifth edition of an excellent work that has already won wide recognition as an exposition of how the birds build and lay. It has been revised and enlarged considerably, and now contains a profusion of cuts that will be highly appreciated. Recognizing the difficulty the mind has in grasping the entire meaning of a written description, the author has added to his text a large number of well-executed drawings of the birds most difficult to describe and has given their nests and eggs the attention their importance to the naturalist demands.