The Scottish Naturalist. 335 



over a precipice he will fall to the bottom, can be accepted as 

 a proof that he is thoroughly acquainted with the Laws of 

 Gravity " (Preface, p. ix.) 



It would be difficult to talk greater nonsense or display 

 crasser ignorance ; and yet these are but average specimens of 

 the absurdities that are propagated in hosts of books — -treating 

 of the "Instinct" of the lower animals — that emanate from the 

 " popular " pen and press. 



But our critical friend does not confine his peculiar 

 statements to metaphysical disquisition on Instinct, in con- 

 trast with Reason. He commits sins of omission, in so far 

 as he gives no Scientific Names of the animals, whose charac- 

 teristics are described ; so that the proper identification of 

 many of the species and genera is impossible. For, what is 

 the " Colocolo" of Guiana, — apparently some kind of Wild- 

 Cat (p. 56) ? or the "Tupaia ferrugineous" (p. 305)? 



He speaks of" Reagh-mehl" instead of " Berg-mehl," and de- 

 scribes it as made up of " Animalculae," whereas it is Diatoma- 

 ceous. Obviously the compiler has much need to study what Dr. 

 Carpenter says on the subject in his well-known Manual of the 

 Microscope, or what is stated more shortly in Chambers's Ency- 

 clopaedia concerning " Mountain Meal." He classes what he calls 

 the " Asse or Caama" among the Foxes (p. 120) ; while it is — 

 according to Chambers's Encyclopaedia^-an Antelope (Antilope 

 caama), the familiar Hartebeest of the Dutch colonists. He 

 describes Hares as " Lepindae," meaning, no doubt, " Lepo- 

 ridae" (pp. 350 and 360); and he says, "The genus Capri are" so 

 and so (p. 44). There is a beautiful and famous island of that 

 name in the Bay of Naples — an island that, with its " blue 

 grotto," I visited only a few months ago. But there is no such 

 genus of quadruped, so far as I am aware. No doubt charity 

 might suggest our transferring all such blunders to the shoul- 

 ders of the Printer, — who has always sins enough of his own to 

 answer for, however. But a straw or a feather shows how the 

 wind blows ; and such blemishes in a professedly Zoological 

 work give rise to a suspicion at least of its writer's competence 

 as a Zoological author. 



On the whole, " Beeton's Boy's Own Library " volume on 

 " Wild Animals " is a curious melange of — 



(1.) Useless "old stories," hackneyed and unauthenticated, 

 that have been perpetually quoted for the last half- 

 century. 



