Essays on natural history : chiefly ornithology /

Abstract

CHINESE NOVEL.-RAMBLES OF THE EMPEROR CHINC TIH IN KEANG NAN : a Chinese Tale. Translated by Tkin Shell; w ith a Preface by James I.eggc, D.D. 2 vols. post 8vo. 21s. cloth. " These rambles of the Haroun Alrasrhid of the Celestial Empire give a very curious, and, at the present moment, a peculiarly interesting view of Chinese opinions, usages, and insti¬ tutions."-Tait's Magazine. CIIORLEY-MUSIC AND MANNERS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY: A Series of Travelling Sketches of Art ami Society. By H. F. Cliorley, Esq., author of " Conti," 3 vols. post 8vo. 31*. 6d. boards. CLAVERS.-FOREST LIFE. By Mary Clavcrs, an Actual Settler; author of " A New Home, Who'll Follow?" 2 vols. fcap. 8vo. pp. 642, 12*. cloth.

"Blood Suckers Most Cruel:" The Vampire and the Bat In and Before Dracula

“…36 Always ready for a nice turn of phrase, he called them elsewhere, "sanguinary imps of night." 37 These reports were confirmed in 1847 by Richard Schomburgk 38 and in 1853 by Alfred Russel Wallace. 39 Wallace identified the second largest bat in Latin America, the Phyllostomus hastatus, as the one in question, rather than the largest one.…”

What can the current debate on ecosystem services learn from the past? Lessons from economic ornithology

“…The cost-benefit approach was also applied to individual birds when economic ornithologists underlined that even if a bird ''occasionally carries off poultry and game birds, its economic value as a destroyer of mammal pests is so great that its slight irregularities should be pardoned'' (here a reference to the marsh hawk by Fisher (1893, p. 29)). Similar discussions concerned many other species or groups of birds, for example owls (Saunders, 1938;Waterton, 1844) or grosbeaks (Beal, 1897).…”