(Oxford University Press, 15s.) ADMIRAL CAMPBELL and Mr. I. O.

Evans, who has done much valuable and voluntary journalistic work on behalf of the Life-boat Service, have compiled an exhaustive and fascinat- ing book about flags. Flags of all nations, all services, all kinds of bodies, movements and public offices; jacks, house flags, shields, pennants, and standards. There are the well known ones like those of the British Empire and the nations of Europe and Asia; the lesser known ones, such as the flags of the Central and South Ameri- can Republics; and those which one reviewer at any rate hardly knew at all: shields of the Canadian provinces, badges of the Commonwealth, code and signal flags and the like.

As would be expected in a book whose part author is an Admiral, the sea is well represented. There is a section about the Royal Navy and another on the flags and funnels of the Merchant Navy, this with two full page illustrations of examples in colour. In a section titled "Official and Civil Flags" the house flag of the Royal National Life-boat Institution is recorded.

Of this, the authors say: The flag of the R.N.L.I, bears a similar device (to that of the Lloyds Burgee for Boats), a red St. George's cross edged with blue on a white field. In each of its quarters appear the letters R.N.L.I. and at its centre is a crown above an anchor. It is flown on life-boats, and life-boat houses and also on the Institution's London Office (Plate VII, Figure 8).

It is also flown, of course, at the Institution's depot at Boreham Wood; this apart, one may consider this an authentic description of the life-boat service flag.

The book is extremely well produced and is illustrated with many fine colour plates, including one containing the R.N.L.I. flag itself. Although perhaps somewhat expensive for those for whom it has principally been prepared (aged 11 and up), this book is a splendid reference work on an absorbing subject..