300 The Irish Naturalist December, 1904. 



NATURE STUDY. 



Eton Nature-Study and Observational Lessons. Part II. By 

 M. D. Hir.L, M.A., F.Z.S. and W. M. Webb, F.Iv vS. London : Duck- 

 worth & Co. Price, 3.f. 6'/: net. Illustrated. 



This is a book commended, as we learn from the " Foreword " to Part 

 I. (which is, however, not the part immediately under review), both to 

 " the Teacher and the Ivcaruer," and doubtless both will find it helpful. 

 At the same time we believe that on the whole it is undesirable for 

 young nature-students to be hampered with books, so that it is to the 

 teacher rather than to the learner that we would recommend this. 



Part II. consists of some twenty-two chapters along with seventeen 

 observational lessons, and an appendix containing a list of the materials 

 required for the work suggested. 



The chapters form decidedly the best part of the book. From them 

 the teacher cannot fail to obtain valuable suggestions for lines of work 

 in very many directions, both as regards plants and animals. The obser- 

 vational lessons strike us as being less valuable. They consist of 

 detailed directions to the pupil, the very formality of which would seem 

 calculated to partially defeat the object of the authors. 



We have found by experience that such instructions to the pupil are 

 more of a hindrance than a help, and that questions and suggestions 

 from the teacher at the time are far more valuable than printed direc- 

 tions to the pupil to " discover other structures . . . ," &c. The 

 individual lessons suffer also in many cases by dealing with too many 

 subjects in the allotted hour. Thus we find l/csson xxiii. starting with 

 a potato tuber, taking a jump suddenly to a wood-louse, coming next to 

 an opening flower, and finally ending up with silk-worm eggs. The pre- 

 parations for work mentioned at the head of each lesson, such as " Dis- 

 tribute the dwarf beau seedlings which have been grown in soil," seem 

 frequently superfluous, and those involving actual preparation, such 

 as the germination of seeds, &c., should, of course, be carried out by the 

 pupils themselves It is to be regretted, too, that more of these lessons 

 are not devoted to the simpler experiments which can be easily performed 

 leading to observations on the physiology of plants. Making drawings 

 merely from morphological studies is apt to become tedious especially to 

 those pupils— and they are, as a rule, not a few — to whom drawing does 

 not strongly appeal. The spaces which are so often directed to be left 

 in the note-book " for a finished drawing " are probably to be filled up 

 during that gloriously long leisure time which is the inheritance of the 

 average school boy, which each master unconsciously assumes the sole 

 right to encroach upon, but which the boy himself probably utilises, and 

 rightly so, for strictly " out of school " purposes ! 



O, H. P 



