yzme 13, 



1889] 



NATURE 



147 



periods of excitement would have an educational value 

 among parents and householders, and teachers of all kinds, 

 and a better knowledge of sanitary principles would 

 manifest its presence amongst us in a greater freedom 

 from sickness and in an enhanced vigour of mind and 

 body. If the registration of sickness, by informing us, 

 warning us, and alarming us, will compel public attention, 

 and direct it to matters of public health, and enable us to 

 resist our worst and deadliest foes, by all means let us 

 have registration. 



When one reflects on the attention given to sanitation 

 for, at least, the last twenty years, and on the labour and 

 money devoted to it since 1872, when the Public Health 

 Act came into operation, one naturally asks what has 

 been the effect on the national death-rate of all the 

 sacrifices we have made. The answer is, on the whole, 

 satisfactory. The mean annual death-rate per 1000 in 

 England and Wales, at all ages, males and females 

 taken separately, has fallen in each of the last three 

 quinquennia, as under : — 



30 years, 1841 — 70 



5 years, 187 1 — 75 



5 years, 1876—80 



5 years, 1881—85 



Here there is manifested a striking reduction in the 

 general death-rate, both for males and females. But it is 

 desirable to examine this improvement more in detail, 

 and to differentiate for age as well as sex. When this is 

 done, the change in the death-rate stands out very 

 distinctly. 



Mean Annual Death-rates, in England and Wales for 

 Periods of Years and Groups of Ages; Males and 

 Females separately. 



From this table it is seen at a glance that the improve- 

 ment in the death-rate has been very considerable for all 

 ages up to 25 ; less considerable from 25 to 45 in the case 

 of males, and 25 to 55 in the case of females ; and that 

 for subsequent ages the change is, on the whole, some- 

 what adverse. The proportion of urban population 

 to rural has increased till at the present moment it may 

 be stated as 2 : i, but despite this fact there has been a 

 striking and continuous fall in the mortality. Of course, 

 it may be argued that the spread of education, and the 

 diffusion of a knowledge of elementary physiological facts, 

 have had something to do with bringing about this result, 

 •and the argument is admissible ; but they cannot account 



either for the suddenness with which the fall set in or 

 the persistency with which it has continued. To sanitary 

 works and operations is, probably in a large measure, 

 to be attributed the improvement in the death-rate as 

 shown above, an improvement that gives 1,800,047 

 additional years of life to the 858,878 children annually 

 born in England, extending the average lifetime of the 

 437,492 males by nearly a year and a half, and of the 

 421,386 females by not less than two years and three- 

 quarters. Apparently, we are taking care of the women 

 and children, especially the latter, and if anything could 

 now be done to alleviate the wear and tear of adult life, 

 arising from the increasing severity of competition, 

 especially among men, and to check the evil effects of 

 crowding together in great towns, these remarkable 

 figures might become more reiparkable, and human life 

 healthier, happier, and still better worth living. 



In conclusion, we may say that the book is clearly and 

 pleasantly written, that the arrangement of the work is 

 excellent, and that, although it cannot contain much that 

 is new, it is interesting from the first page to the last. 



BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS. 

 Bird-Life of the Borders : Records of Wild Sport and 

 Natural History on Moorland and Sea. By Abel 

 Chapman. (London : Gurney and Jackson, 1889.) 



THIS is an admirable book of its kind. On the one 

 hand, its '' records of wild sport " will be full 

 of interest to devotees of the gun and rod ; while, on the 

 other hand, the trustworthiness of its "natural history" 

 is guaranteed by a statement in the preface that the 

 proofs have been revised by Mr. Howard Saunders. But 

 it is not enough to say that the natural history is trust- 

 worthy : it is also full of original observations, interesting 

 alike to the bird-lover and the scientific ornithologist. 

 In particular, we may instance a very suggestive chapter 

 on migration, which shows among other things the im- 

 portance in this connection of distinguishing between a 

 species and its constituent individuals. Certain birds 

 occur in certain regions all the year round, and therefore 

 in those regions might be regarded as non-migratory ; 

 but, as a matter of fact, such regions constitute "over- 

 lapping zones " doubly crossed by the birds in question 

 during their migrations north and south, so that although 

 the species occupies such a region all the year round, it 

 does so only in virtue of a continual changing of its 

 representative individuals; "those individuals which occu- 

 pied this area in summer will be wintering 1000 miles 

 south, while their vacated places are occupied by others 

 which had passed the summer looo miles north." 



Again, there are some curious observations on what 

 the author calls "pseudo-erotism," by which he means a 

 display of amatory instincts which occurs on the part of 

 black-game, plovers, gulls, &c., in October, or even later. 



" On wet, foggy mornings in particular, one hears the old 

 blackcocks ' crooning,' * bubbling,' and ' sneezing,' as 

 excitedly as on a fine day in spring. With a glass, I 

 have watched one surrounded by his harem, strutting 

 round some bare little knowe in the fullest ' pi ly.' . . . 

 Whether this is merely a chronological miscalculation, or 

 arises from some specific cause, the origin of which may be 

 lost in the mists of a remote past, the instinct certainly 

 exists," (Sec. 



