172 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



peculiar growths result from too much 

 food, is not known, but why should we 

 discuss the causes of these abnormal 

 growths when we do not know the 

 cause of ordinary growth? DeVries, 

 the well known botanist, has made ex- 

 tended experiments to show that, like 

 the ordinary growth, these abnormal 

 growths are hereditary. — E. F. B. 



Perhaps in 1,000 Years! 



When we note the successive sur- 

 render of one out-door magazine after 

 another, we often wonder whether 

 there ever will come a time when the 

 general public will forsake nickel thea- 

 ters and moving picture shows for the 

 more satisfying pleasures of the study 

 of nature. Meanwhile Ave continue do- 

 ing what we can to awaken an interest 

 in such things, being possessed of much 

 of the spirit of the Irishman who hear- 

 ing that parrots often live to be 20 J 

 years old bought a specimen with the 

 intention of proving the matter by ex- 

 periment. — The American Botanist. 



Social Life in The Insect World. By J. H. 



Fabre. Translated by Bernard Miall. 

 New York: The Century Company. 

 The author of this book has been called 

 the Homer of the insect world, but I am 

 inclined to think that the comparison goes 

 unnecessarily far back. The author is evi- 

 dently the French Seton-Long-Roberts. He 

 belongs to the modern school that humanizes 

 lower forms of life, and yet this statement 

 does not necessarily declare that he has 

 misrepresented insects, any more than it de- 

 clares that the American writers referred 

 to have misrepresented four-footed animals. 

 He has brought them nearer to human sym- 

 pathy and interest, and in our appreciation 

 of the interesting book that he has pro- 

 'duced, we may well excuse a little over per- 

 sonification. The book is good reading, and 

 in the main good entomology, but perhaps 

 more than all that, a good mirror for seeing 

 ourselves in the insect world. 



Triumphs and Wonders of Modern Chemistry. 



A popular treatise on modern chemistry 

 and its marvels, written in non-technical 

 language for general readers and 

 students. By Geoffrey Martin. New 

 York: D. Van Nostrand Company. 



This is a readable and decidedly interest- 

 ing book setting forth in popular language 

 the latest researches in chemistry. It will 

 also be useful to teachers of chemistry for 

 supplementary reading in connection with 

 their regular class work. In fact, the re- 

 viewer regards it as one of the most inter- 

 esting of popular books that has come to 

 his desk for a long time. It cannot fail to 

 accomplish much good not only in the 

 schools but with the general public. 



The Harvester. By Gene Stratton-Porter. 

 Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page 

 & Company. 



A love story by a naturalist is really worth 

 reading, if for no other reason, at least to see 

 the kind of love story that a naturalist can 

 write. The author is a really truly natural 

 naturalist and a womanly woman. So in- 

 tense is she on both points that, good as the 

 nature study is, it sometimes intrudes where 

 it should keep out, and the intense feminity 

 makes men talk at times like women. 



How vividly it recalls the memory of 

 Richard Jefferies who thought himself a 

 failure because he could not write love 

 stories, but could (though he did not realize 

 it) write the best of nature literature. But 

 Mrs. Porter shows us that a naturalist can 

 write a good love story. But she has a de- 

 cided advantage over Jefferies, since she is a 

 woman and married too. 



The author seems to be a good rambler. 

 She has searched in many fields for medicinal 

 plants — good for mind and body — and the 

 book goes on and on and on, till there are 

 564 pages of it. It is "a good fair sized 

 book." 



Mars as the Abode of Life. By Percival 

 Lowell, A. B., LL.D., New York: The 

 Macmillan Company. 



The author's arguments that there are in- 

 telligent beings on Mars are very interesting. 

 He makes the claim that the Martians in 

 long periods of years have dug canals for 

 irrigating the planet from the melting snow 

 and ice of the northern and southern poles. 

 He claims that the life, cosmically speak- 

 ing, on that planet is soon to pass away. 



"To our eventual descendants life on Mars 

 will no longer be something to scan and in- 

 terpret. It will have lapsed beyond the hope 

 of study or recall. Thus to us it takes on an 

 added glamour from the fact that it has not 

 long to last. For the process that brought it 

 to its present pass must go on to the bitter 

 end, until the last spark of Martian life goes 

 out. The drying up of the planet is certain 

 to proceed until its surface can support no 

 life at all. Slowly but surely time will snuff 

 it out. When the last ember is thus extin- 

 guished, the planet will roll a dead world 

 through space, its evolutionary career for- 

 ever ended." 



Professor Lowell has diligently studied 

 Mars and, though many astronomers will not 

 agree with him, he surely is entitled to a 

 respectful hearing especially because he 

 makes some things he says very interesting, 

 even if the reader cannot always agree with 

 everything he says. 



A list of trees and shrubs which bear fruit 

 attractive to birds, how sea gulls won votes, 

 and how 28,000 children have each been 

 supplied with twenty-five colored plates of 

 American birds and one-hundred pages of 

 text, describing their habits and value to 

 man, are among the more practical articles 

 in "Bird-Lore" for August; a sixty-page 

 number, with two colored plates and other 

 illustrations. 



