230 NATURAL SCIENCE. Sept.. 



Dr. Ritzema Bos is a kindly man, and is ready to say a good 

 word for wild animals as often as he can. Among mammals and 

 birds he sets against each other the good and the harmful influences 

 upon agriculture, and condemns unhesitatingly very seldom. Thus 

 foxhunters will be pleased to learn that the fox "is perhaps generally 

 of more use than otherwise to the farmer and the forester. It catches 

 many rabbits, and also an enormous number of field voles, in the 

 years when these become a pest. It also often eats insects {e.g., 

 cockchafers), worms, and snails." The stoat is decided to have a 

 balance of good qualities, the weasel is almost uncompromisingly 

 praised for its usefulness as a vermin destroyer ; the common shrew, 

 the lesser shrew, the hedgehog and the bats are all to be preserved. 

 On the other hand, for the water shrew, the rats and mice, and the 

 voles. Dr. Bos suggests a careful preservation of their natural enemies, 

 and a bill of fare of which phosphorous paste, dressed in various 

 attractive fashions, is the principal ingredient. 



We are less satisfied with his treatment of birds. It is true that 

 he advocates the preservation of all the British owls and of the kestrel 

 and the buzzard. But he says that " predominantly harmful from 

 killing domestic mammals " are the following species occurring 

 in Britain : The sea eagle, the golden eagle, the peregrine falcon, 

 the merlin, the hobby, the sparrow hawk, the goshawk, and the 

 harriers. The result of the examination of stomachs proves that in 

 many of these cases a large balance of good is done by the birds. 

 As for the other cases, though it be true that aqiiila non capit muscas, 

 the eagle destroys no insect pests, we have no sympathy for the 

 naturalist who plays the informer. It is a poor consolation to know 

 that few English farmers are likely to be driven by depredations 

 on their flocks to set springes to catch golden eagles, or to go out 

 with shot guns against sea eagles ! 



Among other birds the black list is less offensive to us, although 

 we fear that the naturalist and the agriculturist will never quite see 

 eye to eye in the matter of the destruction of any kind of birds. 

 It includes the raven, the magpie, sparrows, and linnets. Because 

 of its shortness it marks so great an advance on popular notions that 

 we will pass it by in silence. 



A good and much needed word is spoken for the persecuted 

 toad. In addition to its attacks upon insects, the toad is a great 

 destroyer of snails. " In the Research Garden attached to the Rouen 

 Entomological Laboratory the snails were entirely exterminated in 

 i8gi as a result of introducing loo toads and 90 frogs." 



Although Ave have occupied so much of the space at our disposal 

 in discussing the part of Dr. Ritzema Bos' book that deals with 

 Vertebrata, as a matter of fact the greater part of the book itself 

 deals with injurious insects and worms. For all this we have nothing 

 but praise. It would be of inestimable advantage to farmers and 

 to gardeners were they to have an acquaintance with the facts about 

 these common pests which are so clearly explained in this excellent 

 treatise. 



Monism. 



The Monist. A Quarterly Magazine. Vol. iv., no. 4. Chicago: The Open 

 Court PubHshing Co. London : Watts & Co. Price 2s. 6d. July, 1894. 



We fancy that monism, as yet, subtends a small angle in the minds 

 of most of our readers ; we may, therefore, take advantage of an article 

 in the current issue of the Monist, written by the editor of the Monist, and 



