NOTICES 



Land Birds of Northern New York. By Ed- 

 mund J. Sawyer. Published under the 

 Auspices of the Watertown Bird Club, 

 Watertown, New York. 

 The author justly tells us that "after all 

 has been said for the observant love of 

 nature the best is that it can keep its votary 

 young at heart in a world like this." Mr. 

 Sawyer has practised what he preaches and 

 he has helped others in their practice. He 

 is an effective writer and skillful as a stu- 

 dent in all departments of nature but espec- 

 ially is he at home among the birds. We 

 cordially recommend this little handbook 

 with its dainty illustrations and appropriate 

 text. 



of certain forms of animal life from mos- 

 quitoes up to tigers. The mines of oil, coal, 

 iron, copper, suggest an infinite mind filled 

 with kindly desire to provide for the human 

 race. That these came by chance or were 

 developed without reference to an adapta- 

 tion in future eons, is unthinkable. 



Under the Apple-Trees. By John Bur- 

 roughs. Boston, Massachusetts, and 

 New York City: Houghton Mifflin 

 Company. 

 John Burroughs not only grows better 

 in many respects as he grows older but he 

 enters a wider field. He says that he can 

 write only on natural history like any farm 

 crop when it is ready to be harvested, "but 

 philosophy we have always with us. It is 

 a crop which we can grow and reap at all 

 times and in all places, and it has its own 

 value and brings its own satisfaction." In 

 Mr. Burroughs's younger days nearly all his 

 writing was devoted to the description of 

 his observations. In recent years it tells 

 us of the thoughts suggested by the various 

 phenomena of nature. That is human life. 

 Active young folks see things and the older 

 folks sit down and think about them. 

 Activity is as characteristic of youth as 

 philosophy is of age. 



The book is named from the title of the 

 first chapter but other instructive sections 

 cover a wide range of this famous natural- 

 ist's speculations. Many readers will not 

 agree with Mr. Burroughs in some of his 

 conclusions, but one that wishes to read 

 both sides of a question will be interested 

 not only in his conclusions but in the 

 course along which his mind travels to 

 arrive at a retrospective resting place. Mr. 

 Burroughs's earlier books made us study 

 and question nature. In this he makes his 

 readers study and question him. But that 

 is in harmony with his theory that man is 

 only a part of nature. 



He teaches that there is no admixture of 

 the human element in astronomy and 

 geology. Some of us believe that geology 

 shows as much provision for the human 

 race as for any other form of life. Nothing 

 in any geological formation is an active 

 enemy to mankind but that cannot be said 



The Life of Inland Waters. An Elemen- 

 tary Text Book of Fresh-water Biology 

 for American Students. By James G. 

 Needham and J. T. Lloyd. Ithaca, New 

 York: The Comstock Publishing 

 Company. 



Here is a real book and one that is needed, 

 one that touches the field in a satisfactory 

 way. There are a few English books that 

 American students have become forced to 

 use for lack of anything better, but this new 

 work excels not only in its adaptability but 

 in its scope all those English and similar 

 books. It includes much on various forms 

 of larger as well as microscopical life. It 

 is devoted chiefly to ichthyology. It is a 

 big book, well printed on coated paper, 

 containing 438 pages magnificently illus- 

 trated with 244 illustrations. The only 

 criticism that can be made, and that is not 

 really unfavorable, is that it covers too 

 wide a field when its use outside of a col- 

 lege classroom is considered. For the 

 amateur however it presents a good bird's- 

 eye survey of the whole realm of small 

 forms of aquatic life up to and including 

 the larger aquatic insects. We recognize 

 that from even so large a book many phases 

 of the subject have been necessarily omitted. 

 For these we must turn to special books. 

 There is however a great amount of text 

 and many illustrations that are new and 

 not duplicated in any other publication. 

 It is an excellent work for the amateur to 

 consult if he intends to give attention to 

 aquatic investigations. Through it he may 

 survey the whole field and decide what he 

 likes best. 



An extensive bibliography offers many 

 suggestions for specializing. The authors 

 give special acknowledgement to Agassiz 

 as an inspiring teacher, to Dr. Joseph 

 Leidy as an excellent zoologist, and to Dr. 

 Alfred C. Stokes whose "Aquatic Micro- 

 scopy" is a useful book for beginners, but 

 they located this famous microscopist in 

 Connecticut, where his book was published, 

 and not in Trenton, New Jersey, where his 

 home is. The wide sympathetic interest 

 of the book is well shown by the following- 

 sentence: 



'"The school bov lies on the brink of a 



