112 THE EEV. J. G. WOOD. 



predecessor, the " Lane and Field," and treating, not 

 of natural history at all, in the ordinary acceptation 

 of the term, but under the title of " Man and his 

 Handiwork" of the gradual advance of the human 

 race from savagery to civilisation, as shown by the 

 works of their hands. The book is not a very large 

 one consisting of some six hundred and fifty octavo 

 pages, set in large type, and profusely illustrated but 

 includes a good deal. It opens somewhat strangely, 

 with the sentence " A horse cannot play the piano," 

 and then proceeds to show the vast difference of the 

 human hand from the corresponding member in any 

 other animal, and the part which it plays in the arts 

 and inventions, as well as in the daily life of mankind. 

 And it is also pointed out that the hand of man makes 

 the tools and weapons which, in the members of the 

 animal world, are provided by the hand of Nature, 

 Man makes out of iron and wood a spade wherewith to 

 dig, but the mole, which, in proportion to its dimen- 

 sions, is a far better excavator than any living man, 

 has its spade naturally provided for it, in the form of 

 its own specially-modified fore limbs. Man makes oars 

 wherewith to row his boat ; but the water-beetles and 

 water-boatmen have their hinder limbs modified into 

 oars, wherewith they row their own boat-like bodies. 

 And so on. And then is traced out the gradual de- 

 velopment of human tools, weapons, utensils, clothing, 

 and ornament, from the primitive relics which have 

 been brought to light by geology, down to their com- 

 paratively perfected representatives of the present day 



