10 IN AUSTRALIAN WILDS 



Mr. Barrett has in late years seen and studied 

 strange phases of Nature in other lands in Egypt, 

 in Sinai, in Palestine where one may still check his 

 impressions by reference to the first book of Nature. 

 And at the end of it he has come back, not to tell us 

 of war, either in its romance or its realities, but to 

 drop quietly into the old haunts and seclusions and 

 give us in his first published words just the old hobby 

 and the old home things. The one thing which all 

 his old friends and admirers would have wished is 

 that everyone who takes up this book could know the 

 author of it as we do. It would have added much to 

 their enjoyment and understanding of his work. He 

 is a tireless, even a daring hunter, without the hunter's 

 limitations in daring most only for the things that are 

 good to kill and to eat. 



The author, though he has what the scientist is 

 pleased to call "attainments," is in no sense a cabinet 

 naturalist. His book is popular, which means that 

 it is human. The actual anatomy of bird or beast 

 appeals to him less than its habits, its activities, and, 

 above all, its living rights, in Nature's wonderful 

 scheme of things. The name of a thing the point 

 where "scientific" knowledge so often begins and 

 ends is of less importance to him than the thing it- 

 self. It is a book to read and keep for company's 

 sake, in the same sense that a picture is so often aptly 

 described as "good to live with." 



DONALD MACDONALD. 



