REVIEWS 527 



biologist, and in the case of the Hawaiian group it has added to it a race of people 

 who came from a considerable distance within what in Europe would be con- 

 sidered historic times. Here these people, of Polynesian stock, settled down and 

 reached a considerable degree of culture and civilisation. Their environment 

 determined to some extent the course of their development, and all this is very 

 well pointed out by the author. Another very useful feature in the book is that 

 the indigenous plants and animals are most carefully marked off from those that 

 have been introduced. Thus there is a permanent record of the introduced forms 

 readily available to any naturalist visiting the islands. No amphibia were found 

 originally, but since they have been introduced from the United States and from 

 Japan and are now commonly distributed. Particularly full accounts of the shells, 

 the birds, and the fish are given, but in the case of the last two the plates would 

 have been improved if a clearer indication of the actual size of the animal had 

 been given in each case. Then, again, most of the plates suffer from overcrowding, 

 due no doubt to a laudable desire on the part of the author to get as much as 

 possible into the book. It is stated in the Preface that the work is not an original 

 contribution to the natural history of Hawaii ; be that as it may, it certainly makes 

 available to the biologist and general reader a vast amount of information not 

 otherwise available. Throughout it is clear and readable, and it is subdivided in 

 such a manner that it is very easy to turn up any particular subject that may be 

 desired. Most of the plates are from negatives in the possession of the author, 

 and they give a very good series illustrating the life of the people and the striking 

 features in the scenery of the islands. To residents and visitors it should prove of 

 great utility, but it also appeals to the naturalist and nature lover the world over. 

 The book is very well printed, and the long index, which is also partly glossary, 

 forms a valuable addition. To quote again from the preface : "If the bare facts of 

 nature have been clothed with living interest sufficient to make them acceptable 

 and full of information for the general reader, . . . and above all should the book 

 prove generally useful, the author's ambition will have been attained." We think 

 that there is no doubt that these modest conditions have been fulfilled. 



C. H. O'D. 



The Rambles of a Canadian Naturalist. By S. T. Wood. [Pp. vii + 247, 

 with 6 coloured plates by Robert Holmes, and decorative headings by 

 students of the Ontario College of Art.] (London : J. M. Dent, 1916. 

 Price 6s. net.) 



Here are a series of short essays on many things — the birds, the beasts, the 

 insects, flowers and trees — that are to be met by the naturalist rambling in Eastern 

 Canada and arranged in the order of the seasons. It is not a book that is to be 

 read as a whole, with intricacies of plot and action to be followed up, but a series 

 of quick, deft, delicate pictures of wild life in our great colony. When the essays 

 are read on one after another, a sense of sameness and more than a hint of 

 repetition will be felt, but this is not manifest if they are read one or two 

 at a time at intervals. Exactly why this feeling comes it is hard to say, for the 

 author has fluent command of a wide and well-chosen vocabulary. One point is 

 well worthy of commendation, and that is the small number of " Americanisms " 

 present. These tricks of construction so fascinating in certain types of novel 

 or useful in the scrambles of a hustling world form such a forceful part of the 

 every-day vocabulary in Canada that it seems hard for them to be kept out 

 of essay writing. Yet many of them appear so incongruous as to be almost 

 offensive to English readers when they occur in what would otherwise be almost 



