REVIEWS. 87 



Yet, notwithstanding these faults, which we have felt it our duty not to 

 pass over, we consider this work well calculated to have a good effect in 

 arousing a taste for so interesting a study as that of our native shells, and 

 of their inhabitants more especially. The figures are accurately drawn, and 

 very fairly coloured ; besides which, the reader will find at the end some 

 useful explanations of scientific terms, incomprehensible to many at first 

 sight, though, it may be, rather more necessary than our author seems 

 willing to acknowledge. 



Gladly as we would spend a little longer in reviewing the very pleasing 

 subject before us, and in telling our readers of each lovely form or more 

 instructive story that rises to our sight as we turn from page to page, it 

 is here our place to conclude ; therefore, with our best wishes for its suc- 

 cess, we would close at once both our book and our review. 



YOUNG NATURALIST'S LIBRARY BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES ; BRITISH 

 SPECIES. By H. G. Adams, author of " Nests and Eggs of Familial- 

 British Birds," &c., &c. London : Groorabridge and Sons. Price Is. 



IN these days of cheap literature we are not often arrested by the low 

 price of a book, but, in this case, we were, at the first sight ; and, having 

 read it, confess that we should call it singularly cheap at double the 

 money. Written for the young the very young, we should say, from the 

 overdone childishness which peeps out here and there under the plea of 

 simplicity and entertainment it is, in the main, admirably adapted for the 

 end designed " to fasten and encourage in the minds of the young a taste 

 for the study of natural history, to lead them to a close examination of the 

 wonderful works of the Creator, and to teach them how to read the great 

 book of nature." We get, for our shilling, a good introduction of twenty- 

 six pages on the history of a butterfly, its preparatory states, the more 

 prominent features of its structure in all of them, with several nicely- 

 executed illustrations in the margin, and a liberal seasoning of poetry to 

 boot, which, to say the worst, cannot do any harm ; coloured figures and 

 descriptions of twenty-two species of native butterflies the figures, if we 

 mistake not, after Mr. Morris, of whom the author is a devoted admirei 

 and, may we say without offence, occasionally an imitator in points where 

 imitation had better been avoided ; sixty pages are devoted to the descrip- 

 tions of these species. Lastly, we have a list of all the British species, 

 with the scientific name, time of appearance, and place of resort of each 

 the last particular too generally treated to be of much use; and under 



