148 



NATURE 



[Dec. 23, 1875 



fulness. The Eskimo, the Lapps, the Samojedes, the 

 Ostraks, the Jakuts, the Tungusi, the Tchuktche, the prin- 

 cipal groups of people in short that inhabit Arctic America, 

 Europe, and Asia, all come in for detailed notice, and 

 that in a manner calculated both to interest and instruct. 

 It is the same with respect to all the other matters re- 

 ferred to in the work : we are too apt when thinking of 

 the Arctic World to limit the term to Greenland or Arctic 

 America at most, forgetting how much more the term 

 includes. In the present work the whole region within 

 the Arctic Circle, all round, is included, and its various 

 features, phenomena, and h'fe described with greater or 



Kamtschatkans. 



less minuteness. The last chapter contains a \>x\t{ risinne 

 of the course of Arctic discovery. 



The work altogether is one of the most interesting and 

 trustworthy of its kind we have had the pleasure to come 

 across ; we do not knowof any similar book which gives 

 a more satisfactory account of the principal features of the 

 Arctic World. Boys and girls we are sure would consider 

 it a treasure ; and to all old boys and full-grown girls 

 who desire " something fresh " both to read and to look 

 at, we can heartily commend it. 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Notes of ^Travel in Soiith Africa. By Charles John 

 Andersson. Edited by L. Lloyd. (London : Hurst and 

 Blackett, 1875.) 



Those who are acquainted with the late Mr. C. J. An- 

 dersson's " Lake N'gami," " The Okovango River " — dis- 

 covered by him — or any of his other writings, will gladly 



avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the *' Notes 

 of Travel " of again learning, from his own pen, other inci- 

 dents in the short and far from uneventful career of the 

 enterprising semi-Swedish traveller and fluent writer. 



The posthumous "Notes" edited by Mr. Lloyd 

 — who performed the same service with reference to 

 another of Mr. Andersson's works, " The Lion and the 

 Elephant" — contain, besides the descriptions of the 

 habits of some few of the birds and animals of the 

 districts in question, the account of the doings of the 

 author during the last four or five years of his life, a 

 period in which the political differences between the 

 neighbouring South African tribes of Damaraland and 

 Namaqua Land compelled him to devote more time to 

 trade and the disputes which arose therefrom, than to 

 geographical and biological research. 



Not long after his marriage, in 1861, Mr. Andersson 

 purchased of the Walwich Bay Mining Company, on the 

 winding up of their affairs, their extensive establishment 

 — Otjimbingue — in Damaraland, with the object of making 

 it a trading station for cattle and ivory. In a war which 

 arose between the Damaras and Namaquas Andersson 

 found himself constrained to become the leader of the 

 former ; during this he sustained, from a bullet, a wound 

 in the leg smashing the upper end of the right tibia and 

 fibula, which was long in healing, and rendered him lame 

 for the short remaining period of his life. 



The great injury done to his trading operations, the loss 

 of his stock, and the probability of further outbreaks, 

 led the author, who was still suffering from his wound, 

 and further incapacitated by repeated attacks of dysentery, 

 in his enfeebled state, to entertain the idea of establishing 

 favourable trading relations with the Portuguese settlers 

 of Benguela, north of the river Cunen^. With this object 

 in view he left Cape Town, where he had spent some 

 time on account of his health, in May 1866, once more for 

 Damaraland. Namaqua marauders continued to harass 

 him, and he started from Ondonga for the Cunen^ in 

 May 1867. He reached that river in the middle of June ; 

 however, he never crossed it because of the bad treatment 

 he received from the ferrymen and from his state of 

 health, which will be best understood from his own note 

 on the day following that on which he reached it. He died 

 in the Ovampo wilderness, where he was buried by no one 

 but a youthful and faithful attendant, Alex Ericson. 



During his illness he spent much of his time in collect- 

 ing the materials for a work on the ornithology of South- 

 west Africa, a book which was to have been published in 

 a profusely illustrated and otherwise costly form by 

 Messrs. Day and Son. This important addition to our 

 knowledge of the African avifauna the author never saw 

 in print ; but since his death it has been produced in a 

 more unassuming form, under the able and careful editor- 

 ship of Mr. J. H. Gurney, under the title of " The Birds 

 of Damaraland ; " now a standard volume of ornithological 

 literature. 



The notes on the habits and powers of the vulture will 

 interest naturalists, as will the attempt to distinguish a 

 second species of ostrich, said to differ from Strut/no 

 camelus in that the male bird is slightly larger, whilst the 

 female is jet black, like the male, instead of greyish ; and 

 the young is of a sooty brown. Machaerhafiipus an- 

 dersso7ii, or Andersson's Perm obtained from Otjim- 

 bingue, is fully described, as are the Kori Bustard {Eupo- 

 dotis kori)y the Rufous-crested Bustard {E. rufcrista), 

 Rupell's Bustard {E. rupelli), and a few other birds. JNIr. 

 Lloyd tells us in his preface that, among numerous papers, 

 Andersson left behind him " Notices of several of the 

 quadrupeds indigenous to Damaraland and the neigh- 

 bouring countries." These it was his original intention 

 to incorporate in the present work, but to preserve the 

 continuity of the narrative they were, with the exception 

 of a single chapter on the Leopard and its congeners, 

 omitted, though not without hope that at some future 



