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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been said about them ; a knowledge of the 

 laws of Nature seen in special experiments 

 and observations, before they are conceived 

 in general terms ; a knowledge of the types 

 of natural forms, gathered from individual 

 cases already made familiar. By such study 

 of one or more departments of inductive 

 knowledge, the mind may escape from the 

 thralldom and illusion which reign in the 

 world of mere words. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



A Naturalist's Rambles about Home. By 

 Charles C. Abbott. New York : D. 

 Appleton & Co. Pp. 486, Price, $1.50. 



There is no denying that natural history 

 is one of the most fascinating of subjects, 

 and now and then there appears a book 

 written by some enthusiastic lover of na- 

 ture, who has entered into communion with 

 the inferior animate creatures, and writes a 

 living book so pleasing and attractive that 

 it is sought by readers with the avidity of a 

 romance. Such works are never compila- 

 tions, nerer scientific treatises, in the usual 

 sense, but always original in observation, 

 full of instruction, life-like and agreeable 

 in description, and abounding in sympa- 

 thetic interest with the habits, peculiarities, 

 and curious lives of that portion of the ani- 

 mal kingdom which is taken up, 



Mr. Abbott's book belongs to this class. 

 Its author is a working naturalist who has 

 made animal life a systematic and scientific 

 study, of course with the aid of books, mu- 

 seums, and the usual helps, but he has always 

 been fond of making the acquaintance of 

 all the animals within reach, watching their 

 ways, noting their characteristics, clearing 

 up obscurities in their history, and finding 

 out everything he could of interest concern- 

 ing them. He has been an out-of-door stu- 

 dent, at home with all sorts of mammals, 

 birds, reptiles, and fishes that he could find 

 in his neighborhood excursions, and the 

 present book is a charming record of his 

 varied observations, investigations, experi- 

 ences, and adventures in his natural history 

 excursions about home for many years. 



We have often thought of that wealth 

 of the farmer owning one or two hundred 

 acrei of land, which he never inventories 

 when making up a statement of his prop- 

 erty. It is wealth which he can not sell. 



but does not have to buy, and he can only 

 know of its existence or appreciate its mag- 

 nitude in proportion to his intelligence re- 

 garding natural things. The soil of his 

 hundred acres is a chemical laboratory in 

 which he operates upon hundreds of thou- 

 sands of tons of materials to carry on the 

 most exquisite and multifarious chemical 

 changes. Mineralogy and geology explain 

 the depths of his estate. lie may be said to 

 own the atmosphere as far up as it extends 

 above his grounds, with its millions of tons 

 of gases, and if he is familiar with Sir Will- 

 iam Thomson's paper on " The Energy of a 

 Cubic Mile of Sunlight," he can understand 

 the enormous amount of solar power which 

 is necessary to drive the organic operations 

 of his farm, and of which he may regard 

 himself as the proprietor. Then there is a 

 little world of vegetable life, of which he is 

 the intellectual owner, if he knows some- 

 thing of botany, while his streams and 

 ponds and earth abound with animal forms, 

 besides the endless insect-life, the animals 

 of field and forest, and the birds of the air, 

 which are in a high sense his if he has 

 enough of zoology to understand them. The 

 lesson of the situation is, that there is an 

 inexhaustible wealth and world of wonders 

 about home to the mind so cultivated that 

 it can discover and appreciate them, 



Mr. Abbott has limited the scope of his 

 natural history observations to his home en- 

 vironment, and he accordingly offers us "A 

 Word at the Start, in Lieu of Preface," in 

 which he describes his location and gives 

 some clews to its interest for natural his- 

 tory purposes. lie lives in " the Jerseys," 

 on Crosswicks Creek, a navigable stream 

 that enters the Delaware River at Borden- 

 town. Eis ancestor came from Notting- 

 ham two hundred years ago, and he now 

 lives in a house built by his great-grand- 

 father on the edge of a high terrace, and 

 surrounded by old oaks, beeches, and lo- 

 custs, under which the author declares that 

 he chiefly lives. There is nothing romantic 

 in the neighborhood, but it has long been a 

 center of special interest to students of nat- 

 ural history. It has been much visited by 

 botanists and zoologists — Bertram, the poet 

 and naturalist ; Conrad the elder, botanist 

 and mineralogist ; Conrad the geologist, his 

 son ; and Rafinesque, Say, Le Seure, Bona- 



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