1903 The Field Naturalists Library 261 



on less morphological subjects, will perhaps be of still greater interest to 

 field naturalists. 



Variation in Plants and Animals. By H. M. Vernon, M.A., 



M.D. London : Kcgan Paul, Trench, Trubner, & Co. Price 5s. 

 There are few subjects which are attracting so much attention at the 

 hands of biologists nowadays as that indicated in the title of this book. 

 With each year a greater and more complex mass of facts and experi- 

 ments is recorded, and it is difficult, indeed, for the non-specialist to 

 keep himself anything like up to date. Also the subject gets more and 

 more technical and distinctly more mathematical. So that we welcome 

 Dr. Vernon's endeavour to give a brief account of the subject of Varia- 

 tion so far as the present state of our knowledge admits. Variation 

 in animals is dealt with more fully than variation in plants, and no 

 fault will be found with the author for the prominence given to his own 

 researches. The book is divided into three parts, which deal with the 

 Facts of Variation, the Causes of Variation, and Variation in its Rela- 

 tion to Evolution, respectively. We have no intention of entering upon 

 a detailed criticism of the contents of these sections, which would be 

 beyond the province of a review in this Journal, but we have great 

 pleasure in drawing the attention of those of our readers who are in- 

 terested in these problems to this book, because here they will find in a 

 comparatively small compass a great deal of the most modern thought 

 on the important questions involved, set forth, moreover, in a manner 

 which the intelligent field naturalist will readily comprehend, which is 

 more than can be said for some writings on Variation. It is a book 

 to be carefully read and studied, and one which will be a useful refer- 

 ence volume for the general reader for most of the facts of the 

 subject. 



My Nature Notebook. By E. Kay Robinson. London : Isbister 

 & Co. Price 2s. 6d. 

 Mr. E. Kay Robinson is so well known as a writer on current nature 

 topics in Country Life, the Outlook, the Daily Graphic, and now — we 

 are glad to be able to add— the F. N. Q., that he must be by this 

 time fairly sure of an audience. We need, therefore, merely draw the 

 attention of our readers to this little volume from his pen, which is, as 

 he says, a cursory record of one year, week by week, of those phe- 

 nomena which came under his own observation, and which may likewise 

 be observed by others at similar periods of the year. Mammals, Birds, 

 Reptiles, Amphibians, Fish, and some Invertebrates, all come in for 

 mention in one or other of the fifty-two weeks of notes, and in order to 

 encourage observation on the part of his readers, the author has added 

 a number of blank pages at the end of the book which they can fill up 

 for themselves. Whether writing of plant or animal, Mr. Robinson is 

 always interesting, because he writes of what he sees out of doors, and 

 also because he reasons pleasantly and not too learnedly therefrom. 

 Field naturalists will read this book with pleasure and profit. 



