Jan., 1893. SOME NEW BOOKS. 65 



Among the illustrations we may select for special commenda- 

 tion those which represent some of the recent results of the applica- 

 tion of photography. The magnificent photograph of the nebula in 

 Andromeda, by Mr. Isaac Roberts, forms an appropriate frontispiece. 



Short Stalks; or, Hunting Camps North, South, East, and West. By E. N. 

 Buxton. 8vo. Pp. vii., 405. Illustrated. London : Stanford, 1892. Price 21s. 



From the main title, which alone appears on the cover, it might be 

 thought that the volume before us was a treatise on some branch of 

 botany or horticulture, if not a novel, whereas, as a matter of fact, 

 it is a very interesting book on " big game " shooting. It must not 

 however, be thought that it comes merely under the designation of 

 an ordinary book of sport, since the author gives us some very valu- 

 able information as to the habits and mode of life of the various 

 animals treated. Moreover, Mr. Buxton has been fortunate in the 

 locahties he has selected for many of his hunting trips, whereby he 

 has been brought into contact with animals as to whose habits there 

 has hitherto been a dearth of information in the works of recent 

 English writers. Sporting works on the larger mammals of Southern 

 Africa, India, and North i\merica are so numerous as to afford an 

 almost superabundance of information ; vvhereas, in regard to Eastern 

 Asia, Europe, and North Africa there is a marked dearth of acces- 

 sible and reliable observations by English sportsmen. We are, there- 

 fore, especially glad to welcome Mr. Buxton's accounts of the 

 Sardinian Mouilon {Ovis musimon), of the Spanish or Pyrenean Wild 

 Goat {Capra pyrenaica), of the Arui {Ovis tragelaphus) of North Africa, 

 as well as of the Pasang or Persian Wild Goat {Capra cegagrns), and the 

 Chamois {Rupicapra tragus). The majority of the twelve chapters into 

 which the work is divided have already appeared as separate articles 

 in various serials and newspapers, but they are now so much embel- 

 lished by the addition of the excellent illustrations with which the 

 book is adorned, that it is difficult to recognise them as the same. By 

 the courtesy of Mr. Stanford we are enabled to reproduce one of these 

 illustrations as a sample. In addition to these excellent portraits of 

 the animals he describes so graphically, Mr. Buxton also incidentally 

 introduces some charming little sketches of bird-life and scenery. 



The first chapter of the book is devoted to the Mouilon, which the 

 author describes as one of the most difficult animals to stalk which he 

 has ever come across. The second deals with the Chamois of the 

 Alps, while the variety inhabiting the Pyrenees is described in the 

 ninth chapter under its Iberian name, Izzard; and here we may point 

 out to the author that he is quite behind modern zoology in referring 

 to this animal under the title oi Antilope rupicapra. The third chapter 

 is devoted to American game, where some interesting observations are 

 recorded as to the habits of the Bighorn Sheep {Ovis montana) ; while 

 in the fifth Mr. Buxton treats of the Arui and Mountain Gazelle of 

 Algeria. The author appears to have been the first Englishman who 

 has hunted these animals, and the results of his observations have 

 already appeared in the Zoological Society's Proceedings. We are 

 told that the name " Aoudad," so commonly applied to the Arui, is 

 quite unknown in its native land, and the author also speaks as to 

 the remarkable powers of concealment possessed by these animals. 

 The Elk of Norway claims the whole of the fifth chapter ; while the 

 sixth (which originally appeared in the Nineteenth Century) treats of the 

 Pasang, under the legend of '• The Father of all the Goats," in allusion 



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