624 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



suck fancies. Lay eggs or pur, and you'll 

 forget them.' 



" ' But it is so delightful to swim on the 

 water,' said the duck ; ' so delightful when 

 it dashes over one's head, and one dives 

 down to the very bottom.' 



" ' Well, that must be a fine pleasure,' 

 said the hen. ' You are crazy, I think : 

 ask the cat, who is the cleverest man I 

 know, if he would like to swim on the 

 water, and perhaps to dive, to say nothing 

 of myself. Ask our mistress, the old lady, 

 and there is no one in the world cleverer 

 than she is : do you think that she would 

 like to swim on the water, and for the water 

 to dash over her head ? ' 



" ' You don't understand me,' said the 

 duck." 



Twelve Idioms spoken in the Southwest 

 of the United States : Pueblo and 

 Apache Dialects, Tonto, Tonkawa, 

 Digger, Utah. Vocabularies, pub- 

 lished and commented upon by Prof. 

 Albert S. Gatschet. Weimar, 1876. 

 8vo, pp. 150. (In the German language.) 

 Westermann & Co. 



In this volume a series of vocabularies 

 and phraseology, collected by members of 

 Lieutenant George M. Wheeler's survey- 

 parties, were made the object of a compara- 

 tive investigation by the author, a resident 

 of New York City, who is already known to 

 the scientific world by various treatises on 

 Indian languages, and on European dialects 

 found in the Alpine valleys. Oscar Loew, 

 chemist of one of Lieutenant Wheeler's 

 parties, collected the main portion of these 

 vocabularies, adopting for them the alpha- 

 betical notation recommended by the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. To solve the long- 

 standing problem of the primordial habitat 

 of the Aztec tribe, which forms a portion 

 of the far-stretching Nahua race of na- 

 tives, the author has united all the lin- 

 guistic information which can at the pres- 

 ent time be derived from the study of the 

 Pueblo languages, and has also illustrated 

 the radical affinities of the other language- 

 stocks, which form the object of the pub- 

 lication. In addition to this, the volume 

 contains one of the most exhaustive enu- 

 merations of American language-stccks and 

 dialects ever attempted from the genea- 

 logical standpoint, embracing North, Cen- 



tral, and South America, and gives a trans- 

 parent synopsis of the plan of thought 

 and the morphological processes observed 

 in various idioms of the Western Hemi- 

 sphere. From a separate chapter, the con- 

 tents of which are novel to science, and 

 of the highest linguistic interest, we be- 

 come enabled to follow Indian thought and 

 Indian combinatory powers to the very 

 abysses and mysteries of primeval word- 

 formation and word-composition. 



A short appendix compares and ana- 

 lyzes numerous terms embodied in the 

 large word-table on pages 7 to 117, and 

 classifies the numeral adjectives according 

 to the various systems of numeration in 

 use all over the divers parts of the globe 

 (binary, quinary, etc.). On the last pages 

 two curious Southern rock-inscriptions are 

 figured and their interpretation attempted. 



The Land-Birds and Game-Birds of New 

 England, with Descriptions of their 

 Habits, and Notes. By H. D. Minot. 

 Salem : Naturalists' Agency, 1876. 

 Pp. 350. Price, $3. 



This book is likely to attract the atten- 

 tion of ornithologists on account of both its 

 good and bad qualities. It is restricted in 

 its scope to New England, and intended 

 chiefly to report what the author has him- 

 self observed in the neighborhood of Bos- 

 ton, but the biographies are extended by 

 copious quotations. Mr. Minot seems to 

 regard the subject from the standpoint of 

 an oologist, and makes the breeding habits 

 of birds the most prominent feature of his 

 history. The long introduction is especial- 

 ly addressed to egg-collectors or students, 

 and contains minute information upon 

 forming oological cabinets. This portion 

 of the book should have been revised by 

 the author, and cut down at least one-third. 

 As to the long appendix, embracing keys 

 by which to identify the eggs of the birds, 

 and the birds themselves mentioned in the 

 volume, it is practically useless ; while the 

 construction of the two indexes is foolish. 

 This misfortune arises frcm the method 

 of the book, which its character and ob- 

 ject considered is altogether bad. The 

 arrangement of his subject-matter, under 

 various signs and paragraph-marks, is only 

 an obstruction, and we are sure the really 

 great value of the work, as a whole, would 



