SCIUJVTIFIC LITERATURE. 559 



Morphology aud Noll's Physiology, or the genei'al part, and the second the 

 special part, or Schenk's Cryptogams and Schimper's Phanerogams. 



Mr. William E. D. Scott seeks in his Bird Studies* to place before 

 students and others who wish to acquire knowledge on birds a means to 

 that end — in other words, to invite them to a more intimate acquaintance 

 with them. To this work he brings, in the shape of original notes based on 

 field work, the fruits of his own studies during the past thirty years; and 

 has further consulted, to insure accuracy, the standard works on North 

 American birds; and be believes that all the kitids of birds of the land 

 known to occur in the cases dealt with down to November 1, 1897, are in- 

 cluded in his treatise. We say birds of the land, because the water birds 

 are not included, being reserved for another volume. The area covered — 

 called eastern North America — is that part of the continent east of the 

 Mississippi River, Lake Winnipeg, and the western borders of Hvidson 

 Bay, with Greenland and the islands which naturally associate themselves 

 with the mainland of the region. In the descriptions the birds are not 

 grouped by the usual systematic classifications, but as one would be most 

 likely to meet them and according to the places they frequent. " It is be- 

 lieved that a knowledge of the birds nearest to us is the best point of depar- 

 ture, and is less liable to lead to mental confusion than if all the members 

 of a given systematic group — as, for instance, all the thrushes or all the 

 sparrows of the entire region — were to be introduced or placed before the 

 student in a body." Certain kinds have come to associate themselves more, 

 on the whole, with the regions round the house than wifh any other local- 

 ity. Others are in the same way characteristic of the woodland, the field 

 and meadow, bush, and swamp. After these the birds along the highway, 

 '' in the woods," '" across the fields," " in marsh and swamp," and " by stream 

 and pond " are described ; and, finally, a systematic table of the land birds 

 of eastern North America is given. The letterpress descriptions are models 

 of what such articles should be when directed*to untechnical readers— brief, 

 comprehensive, direct, -and definite. The one hundred and sixty-eight 

 illustrations are of various degrees of satisfactoriness. The pictures of live 

 birds and nests and of bush surroundings are lifelike and true, but show 

 the difficulty of managing outdoor light when the bird, and not the artist, 

 selects the moment for taking the pictiire. The pictures of dead birds are 

 mostly excellent photographs, but liable to objection in other respects; 

 they do not show the bird as it is in life, and are useless for purposes of 

 identification; they are not agreeable to look at, and, at a time when the 

 most strenuous efforts are hardly sufficient to prevent destruction of the 

 birds and secure their preservation, they are a bad example. The book 

 would have been better if they had been left out of it. 



Our impression as we take up Mr. Goldirin Smith's Guesses at the Rid- 

 dle of Existence t is a strong one of the pity it is that we can not enjoy the 

 reading of the books of the Bible free from the traditions with which they 

 have been surrounded, and the glosses and scholasticism and false inter- 

 pretations that have been put upon them. Here is a man, candid and one 



* Bird Studies. An Account of the Land Birds of Eastern North America. With Illustrations 

 from Original Photocraphs. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp.363. Price, g5. 



t Guesses at the Riddle of Existence, and othor li.'^snys on Kindred Subjects. By Goldwin Smith. 

 New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp.244. Price, $1.25. 



