HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



I o 



A GOSSIP ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 



have not been so 

 much delighted 

 with a book since 

 we read Darwin's 

 ' ' Journal of a 

 Naturalist," as we 

 have with Mr. H. 

 N. Moseley's 

 Notes by a Natura- 

 list on the " Chal- 

 lenger V (London : 

 Macmillan & Co.) 

 Si ngularly 

 enough, the book 

 is dedicated to 

 Darwin, in ac- 

 knowle d g e m e n t 

 of that authors' 

 "Journal." We 

 cannot forbear 

 quoting the 

 "Dedication," for although these literary vagaries 

 are " survivals " of a period, when they were unfortu- 

 nately necessary to a poor author, yet they afford 

 modern writers the opportunity of expressing their 

 genuine gratitude for services other than pecuniary 

 they have received. Mr. Moseley's dedication is 

 moreover representative, for it expresses the feel- 

 ings of many grateful naturalists who have not the 

 opportunity of so practically acknowledging it as 

 Mr. Moseley has. " To Charles Darwin, Esq., LL.D., 

 F.R.S., &c. From the study of whose 'Journal of 

 Researches,' I mainly derived my desire to travel 

 round the world ; to the development of whose theory 

 I owe the principal pleasures and interests of my life, 

 and who has personally given me much kindly en- 

 couragement in the prosecution of my studies, this 

 book is, by permission, gratefully dedicated." 



Mr. Moseley has long been regarded as one of our 

 most -promising young naturalists. He inherits the 

 scientific tendencies of his father, the distinguished and 

 lately deceased Rev. Canon Moseley. As a Fellow 

 of Exeter College, and the possessor of the Radcliffe 

 travelling fellowship, he has been fortunately enabled 

 to pursue studies for which he is so well fitted. His 

 No. 172. 



researches in the natural history relations of the 

 Milleporidse and Stylasteridre, in which he has shown 

 that these abundant and so-called "Corals" are in 

 reality allied to the Hydroid polypes, rather than to 

 the Anthozoa, have opened out a new field of specula- 

 tion and classification. Although the " Challenger" 

 expedition has already furnished us with abundant 

 literature, it is not invidious, but simply a justice to 

 the talented author of this book to say that none will be 

 so warmly or satisfactorily welcomed and read. In a 

 pleasant confidential manner, Mr. Moseley makes his 

 readers the companions of his voyage. We gradually 

 feel as he does the necessity to examine every object, 

 mineral, vegetable, or animal, and we are delighted 

 by finding these objects assuming a new importance, 

 when regarded in the light of Evolutionism. For the 

 author is an ardent evolutionist, and makes frequent 

 use of that philosophy to speculate on derivations, 

 relationships, and general embryology. We can but 

 faintly indicate the fresh and delightfully new avenues 

 of thought which Mr. Moseley's book opens out. 

 Nothing is neglected — physics, physical geography, 

 geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, anthropology ; 

 in each of these departments the reader will find 

 abundant reflections. The "Challenger" expedition 

 has not been so successful in results as its friends 

 desired it, and all confess to a disappointment. We 

 cannot but think, however, that Mr. Moseley's 

 "Notes" will do more than anything which has 

 yet publicly appeared to restore confidence in the 

 scientific results of the celebrated voyage. 



Flowers and their unbidden Guests, by Dr. A. 

 Kerner ; translated by Dr. W. Ogle (London : C. 

 Kegan Paul & Co.), is a well-known work, recently 

 translated from the German. We are glad that 

 English readers have now the opportunity of studying 

 one of the most delightful books that have yet appeared 

 on the mechanism and morphology of flowers. It is 

 a veritable romance of natural history ; it throws 

 a new and poetic glamour about the simplest flower 

 of the roadside. We have already learned how 

 flowers have been coloured and perfumed and dif- 

 ferently shaped, in order to attract useful insects to 

 the necessary work of cross-fertilisation, but here we 

 are introduced to numberless devices, by means of 



