NATURAL SCIENCE: 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 8. Vol. I. OCTOBER. 1892, 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Field Observations in Natural History. 



SOME time ago (supra, p. 84) we had occasion to lament the meagre 

 character and restricted import of most of the original con- 

 tributions to Natural History published by the British Field Clubs. 

 The issue of several new reports and journals which we record else- 

 where still further justifies this lamentation over wasted opportunities ; 

 and the fact that even in so widely-studied a subject as botany no 

 member of the societies affiliated with the Midland Union has done 

 any original work during the last three years worthy of the award of 

 the Union's Darwin Medal, emphasises the need for a further 

 systematic organisation of research. On the former occasion, we 

 pointed out the service that might be done by any widely-gifted 

 naturalist who would produce a handbook stating modern problems in 

 such terms that any ordinary student of nature, dwelling at a distance 

 from towns and libraries, could turn his observations to some profit- 

 able account. Quite lately we have had the great gratification of 

 receiving the precise vade mecnm, which ought to be in the hands of all 

 observers who take an interest in the facts and phenomena of organic 

 nature. 



This little work ^ is a new volume of Mr. Murray's University 

 Extension Manuals, and has been prepared by one of the most lucid 

 of modern teachers, Mr. J. Arthur Thomson, of the School of 

 Medicine, Edinburgh. It is a book intended for suggestive guidance 

 of the student, " rather than to satisfy that thirst for knowledge which 

 leads many to intellectual insobriety." The matter is divided into 



1 " The Study of Animal Ltfe." By J. Arthur Thomson, M.A., F.R.S.E. 8vo.. 

 pp. 375, with woodcuts. London ; John Murray, 1892. Price 5s. 



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