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REVIEW.* 



"The Plagues and Pleasures of Life in Bengal" is one of those popular books 

 on natural history which in the last generation would not have paid their print- 

 ing expenses but are now multiplying year by year at a rate that indicates, in 

 a striking manner, the change which has come about in the mental attitude of 

 the reading public everywhere towards " Nature study." One is sometimes 

 tempted to think that in England the thing is being overdone. The continu- 

 ous stream of books of this kind which issues from the British publishing 

 houses, all beautifully printed, handsomely bound and superbly illustrated, but 

 of very unequal merit, is overlaying the subject. One cannot see the wood for 

 the trees. In India as yet there are none too many and every new comer is sure 

 of a kindly reception. The author of the book under review is not, however, 

 a stranger. It is only four years since Lieut. -Colonel D. D. Cunningham gave 

 us, under the title "Some Indian Friends and Acquaintances," a pleasant 

 volume of chatty discourses upon the beasts, birds and reptiles to be seen in 

 Calcutta and its immediate neighbourhood, which was full of the fruits of close 

 and sympathetic observation. The present volume carries the same strain down 

 into the invertebrate ranks of the animal kingdom. In short, it is a book about 

 the " poochies " of Bengal : these are the Plagues and Pleasures. It is not a 

 scientific work and does not pretend to be, but a notice of it will surely not be 

 out of place in the Journal of a Society of which it may be said, without fear 

 of contradiction, that its greatest and most successful work has been to foster 

 and diffuse a general interest in the fauna and flora of India. 



The popular treatment of science need not be unscientific, for all intelligent 

 records of fact are of value if their accuracy is assured, whether couched in 

 technical terms or in the language of common speech. Tried by this test. Colonel 

 Cunningham's book proves to be like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's image, "part 

 of iron and part of clay.' 1 He is unquestionably a close and curious observer of 

 nature and he appears to have been also, for nearly thirty years, a most indus- 

 trious recorder, not only of facts, but also of the reflections suggested by them ; so 

 that he is not dependent now on a treacherous memory. All this and more makes 

 itself evident to the reader before he has gone through many pages of the book 

 But it also becomes evident that the subjects treated of embrace some of which 

 the author has a well-grounded knowledge and some of which he has no know- 

 ledge at all. When writing of plants and trees he calls them by their botanical 

 names and reveals an easy familiarity with all the technicalities of botanical 

 description ; but when he turns to insects, the absence of scientific names and of 

 even the most elementary acquaintance with classification is the more striking by 

 contrast. Familiar wasps are described as " a brilliantly metallic creature " and 

 "a relatively large insect, clothed in a suit of rich, warm brown and with a brilliant 

 yellow head." So minute and exact, nevertheless, are his descriptions of their 



*Plagues and Pleasures of Life in Bengal by Lieut. -Colonel Cunningham, C.I.E., F.R.S. — 

 John Murray, Albemarle Street, London. 



