78 



HARD WICKE >S S CIE NCE - G OS SI P. 



done to the original pebble beyond giving it a suf- 

 ficiently convenient form to enable the user to grasp it, 

 but the bruised and battered face of the implement 

 clearly shows to what use it was put. In the scrapers we 

 see that a sharp edge has been placed by skilful blows 

 on one side of the stone, whilst the other has been 

 probably fastened into some kind of holder. Primi- 

 tive man would very soon have discovered that few of 

 the stones commonly met with more readily adapted 

 themselves to his wants than the flints so common 

 wherever there was chalk, or, indeed, often found 

 scattered here and there in gravel-beds and other 

 spots at some distance from their original source. 

 The sharp edge of a broken flint, the comparative 

 ease with which it could be variously shaped, soon 

 led man to prefer it to other materials. 



The razor-like edge of a flint-flake would be found 

 to make an excellent knife, and such long thin flakes 

 are amongst the implements most commonly met 

 with. They are usually flat on one side, with a well- 

 defined bulb of percussion at one end, — a proof of 

 their having been struck by a deliberate blow from 

 the original block ; a mere splinter broken accident- 

 ally by the crushing of a mass of flint never has this 

 well-marked protuberance. The upper surface of these 

 flakes has also two or more faces, giving to the specimen 

 in section a more or less triangular aspect. Broader 

 flakes, with a sharpened edge at one end, would 

 adapt themselves as scrapers. We also often find 

 flints with very carefully-worked points, which may 

 well have been used for boring holes in fragments of 

 bone, to form needles, and they might be used, too, 

 for piercing the skins, that the bone needle might 

 more readily pass through. Some of the most 

 primitive implements were large, somewhat oval- 

 shaped, ones, made of flint or some other hard stone ; 

 these, which are frequently found in the old river 

 gravels, and some of which are made of quartzite 

 pebbles, have been discovered in the earliest beds of 

 the Creswell caves in England would, if bound firmly 

 into a handle, serve as formidable axes or tomahawks, 

 and were probably used as such. 



( To be continued. ) 



THE REAPPEARANCE OF AN OLD 

 FRIEND.* 



BRITISH natural history has produced few works 

 which have become national classics. But 

 White's " Natural History of Selborne" undoubtedly 

 takes rank as such, and finds its place on our library 

 shelves side by side with Goldsmith and Addison. 

 The unaffected and graceful simplicity of the style, 

 the cheerful and yet reverential tone of thought, the 

 quiet love for all that lives, the keen power of 

 observation, and the readiness to draw correct in- 



* " The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne." By 

 the late Rev. Gilbert White. Edited by Thomas Bell, F.R.S., 

 F.L.S., and Professor of Zoology, King's College, London. 

 2 vols. London : John Van Voorst. 



ferences from complex facts, have rendered this work 

 the most popular of its kind that was ever written. 

 There is a freshness and a charm about every page, 

 which seems imbued with the breath of the green 

 fields, and the spirit of the silent woods. One returns 

 to its occasional perusal with delight. It appeals as 

 successfully to youth as to age, and commands its large 

 circle of readers by reason of its broad sympathies. 

 Naturalists and non-naturalists alike confess to its 

 charm. Perhaps no other English work on natural 

 history could have borne half the editing which 

 White's "Selborne" has had to experience. We 

 have editions of all kinds, voluminous and com- 

 pendious, editions de luxe, and "cheap editions for 

 the people" ; and still the work has lived throughout. 

 In our opinion the present edition of White's cele- 

 brated book is the best which could possibly be 

 produced. There are many reasons why this should 

 be the case. First of all the editor, Professor Bell, 

 is himself one of our best naturalists and natural- 

 history writers. No man more fully recognizes the 

 scope of his work — no living naturalist has more 

 pleasant memories of by-gone workers. Moreover, 

 Professor Bell has lived in White's house at Selborne 

 for the past thirty years, and so must have become 

 imbued in no small degree with the spirit and charm 

 of the place. This edition of White's work has, 

 therefore, been edited in the house where it was ori- 

 ginally written. The style in which this edition has 

 been published demands a few words of remark. The 

 binding of both volumes is after the modest style 

 which White would have undoubtedly preferred. The 

 engravings and woodcuts (not numerous) are of the 

 best kind of artistic work ; the paper is excellent ; 

 the type large and cheerful ; and there is an absence 

 of those abounding foot-notes in small print on every 

 page, which, in some editions of White's "Selborne," 

 have made its perusal almost a torture. 



After saying thus much for the manner in which 

 this edition has been brought out, we have next to 

 draw attention to several matters in which it differs 

 from all previous editions. A few years ago a series 

 of twenty letters, constituting a correspondence be- 

 tween Gilbert White to Robert Marsham, of Stratton, 

 Norfolk, were discovered, and published, we believe, 

 in the "Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich 

 Naturalists' Society," accompanied by a notice of 

 Mr. Marsham's life, by Mr. Thomas Southwell, hon. 

 sec. These letters are included in the second volume 

 of the present edition. In addition to them are other 

 letters and correspondence of Gilbert White's, which 

 now appear in print for the first time. Such is the 

 correspondence between himself and his brother John, 

 who was English chaplain at Gibraltar, and after- 

 wards vicar of Blackburn, in Lancashire. In these 

 letters we gain a loveable knowledge of Gilbert 

 White otherwise than as a naturalist. His brother 

 seems to have been as simple-minded and guileless as 

 himself, and this correspondence has a quaint, affec- 



