5H 



NA rURE 



[April 



22, 1922 



Practical School Gardening. By P. Elford and S. 

 Heaton. Second Edition. Pp. 224. (Oxford : At 

 the Clarendon Press, 1921.) 35. 6d. net. 

 Messrs. Elford and Heaton have had very con- 

 siderable experience in organising school gardens and 

 making them fit into the educational scheme, and they 

 have produced a volume which has already proved its 

 usefulness, so that it now passes into a second edition. 

 The authors insist that the combination of School 

 Gardening and Nature Study when properly co-ordi- 

 nated with the rest of the work in the school can be, 

 and often are, a valuable means of education. Most 

 teachers would agree, but difficulties do undoubtedly 

 arise when an attempt is made to put this excellent 

 general principle into practice. Given a plot of ground, 

 a class, and a limited but definite time each week, how 

 is the teacher to proceed in order that the children 

 may derive the maximum educational benefit ? The 

 practical details that need attention, the pests, 

 weeds, and other troubles that are likely to cause 

 trouble, and the many difficulties that crop up as soon 

 as one begins to cultivate the soil, are effectively dealt 

 with. The authors urge that a school reference library 

 might with advantage be formed, but they give no 

 suggestions to this end. In a future edition a list of 

 suitable books might well be added. 



Laboratory Manual of the Technic of Basal Metabolic 

 Rate Determinations. By Dr. W. M. Boothby and 

 Dr. Irene Sandiford. Pp. 117. (Philadelphia and 

 London : W. B. Saunders Company, 1920.) Price 

 245. net. 

 The authors consider that the results of indirect 

 calorimetry should not be thrown into general discredit 

 as a means of clinical diagnosis, by neglect of details 

 requisite for a true basal metabolic rate. In their' 

 well-illustrated book they have certainly set a good 

 example in the matter of detail. They describe the 

 method in use at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. 

 The patient inspires the atmospheric air through a 

 mask, and the expired air is collected and measured in a 

 gasometer (Tissot) from which samples of air are taken 

 for analysis of carbon dioxide and oxygen by the 

 Haldane gas analysis apparatus, the calculations being 

 carried out as usual. The advantages of this method, 

 and perhaps the disadvantages of other methods, are 

 somewhat emphasised. The authors deserve credit 

 for the very careful directions for all stages of the 

 technique. The book contains a special note for calcula- 

 tion of metabolic rate of a diabetic, a bibliography, an 

 appendix with all the tables required for calculations, 

 and an index. Indirect calorimetry has certainly 

 proved its value in cases of thyroid disease. 



Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468- 

 1921. Pp. 112. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1922.) 

 SE- 

 THIS is a charming monograph describing the work 

 of a great institution. The book is a masterpiece of 

 typography, and is embellished by a number of repro- 

 ductions of old woodcuts and recent photographs. 

 Special chapters are devoted to its most important 

 publications — the Oxford English Dictionary and the 

 Dictionary of National Biography. The vast opera- 



NO, 2738, VOL. 109] 



tions of the Press may be judged by the fact that its 

 warehouses at Oxford are estimated to contain 3J 

 million copies of about 4500 distinct works. From 

 these vaults was drawn into the upper air, in 1907, 

 the last copy of Wilkins's " Coptic New Testament," 

 published in 17 16, the paper scarcely discoloured and 

 the impression still black and brilliant. During the 

 War, the Press carried out much confidential work for 

 the Naval Intelligence Department, and supplied 

 during three years 4J million copies of the New Testa- 

 ment for use in the field. The relations of the Press 

 to its servants have always been amicable, and the 

 case of the late Mr. J. C. Pembrey, one of the proof- 

 readers, is probably unique : in 1847 he read Wilson's 

 " Sanskrit Grammar," and in 1916 the " Vedic Gram- 

 mar " of Prof. Macdonell. 



Animal Life of the British Isles : A Pocket Guide to the 

 Mammals, Reptiles, and Batrachians of Wayside and 

 Woodland. By E. Step. (The Wayside and Wood- 

 land Series.) Pp. vii + 184 + iii plates. (London 

 and New York : Frederick Warne and Co., Ltd., 

 1921.) los. 6d. net. 



This handy little volume will be welcomed by a large 

 number of amateur naturaHsts, and can be cordially 

 recommended to all who wish for full and accurate 

 knowledge of the habits, life histories, and appearances 

 of those members of the British fauna that are included 

 in the three classes specified in the sub-title. Hitherto 

 it has not been possible to secure such information 

 within the covers of a single small volume, nor in any 

 one work at so low a price. The illustrations are excel- 

 lent, the plain being from the work of our best naturalist 

 photographers, such as Messrs. Douglas English, Oxley 

 Grabham, and others, while forty-eight photographs 

 in the natural colours are to the credit of Mr. W. J. 

 Stokoe. The co-operation of these talented artists 

 with the author results in a very satisfactory pocket 

 guide. 



British Insect Life : A Popular Introduction to Ento- 

 mology. By E. Step. Pp. 264 + 32 plates. (Lon- 

 don : T. Werner Laurie, Ltd., N.D.) 10s. 6d. net. 

 Attempts to give " popular " accounts of the several 

 orders, families, and other subdivisions into which 

 insects are classified almost invariably fail from lack 

 of the courage needed to set before the general reader 

 those details of structure that must be mastered in 

 order to discriminate order from order, genus from 

 genus, and, still more, species from species. In the 

 absence of such information books such as this by Mr. 

 Step become, except to those already versed in ento- 

 mology, meaningless in many of their pages. We should 

 welcome statements which would enable the enthusiastic 

 beginner to determine whether the specimen in his 

 hand was, say, a stone-fly, a may-fly, a lacewing-fly, or 

 a caddis-fly ; and others rendering clear the structural 

 differences between, say, the pierid and the nymphalid 

 butterflies ; and so on. We decline to believe that 

 shirking the difficulties will ever popularise or in any 

 way benefit the science of entomology. The figures in 

 the plates of this book are unfortunately not numbered ; 

 thus the uninstructed reader is left in doubts as to the 

 application of the numbers given in the respective 

 legends. 



