Gypsies of Britain

Abstract

READERS of Nature are probably familiar with Mr. Vesey-FitzGerald's name as a prominent naturalist and a distinguished chiropterist (he even shelters young bats inside his vest, feeding them with gentles held in his mouth). They may know further that he was for long the natural history editor, and is now editor, of The Field. But few know him as a writer of one brilliant story dealing with the episode of Sisera and Jael, and still fewer, until this year, knew that he is as much of a gipsy as anyone other than a pure Romany can be. Now he has given us a most interesting book on the gipsies of Britain. For the accuracy of this book I can vouch, because in the course of a medical experience of more than fifty years I, too, have studied gipsies and doctored all who came my way, in all sorts of conditions, from the heaths of West Cornwall to the open fairs of East London.

Gypsies of Britain

An Introduction to their History. By Brian Vesey-FitzGerald. Pp. xvi + 204. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1944.) 15s. net.