October 28, 1915] 



NATURE 



2^5 



; attempt to place this work under a system of 

 i Government control and inspection would involve 

 the exclusion of the important class of investiga- 

 tions which leads to the most novel and far- 

 reaching- results. 



Our universities are straining their resources to 

 the utmost in the effort to keep down expenditure. 

 Where members of their staffs have gone on 

 active service (in some departments to the extent 

 of above fifty per cent.) their work is being cheer- 

 fully taken over by their colleagues. Not only 

 are building operations being suspended (and this 

 is probably a wise precaution for many reasons), 

 but the purchase of books and apparatus is being 

 "^reduced to the bare minimum. 



The extra work undertaken by the remaining 

 [members of the staffs is only reduced in a very 

 [slight degree by the falling off in students. So 

 [long as a certain number of classes have to be 

 ■held, a difference in the numbers of each class 

 ^does not make a great difference in the work. 

 The strain is bound to make itself felt sooner or 

 iter. But there are noticeable cases in which the 

 Effort to secure economy appears to have been 

 Sarried too far. It cannot be desirable in the 

 )ublic interest that vacancies in two such im- 

 >rtant departments as physics and chemistry 

 lould remain unfilled, and we believe that it is 

 the interests of the Government, instead of 

 f'lng'mg pressure on the universities to effect 

 Irther economies, rather to exert its influence in 

 lacking them from going too far. 

 The four Vice-Chancellors of the northern uni- 

 rersities are to be congratulated on the strong 

 ise they have made out. The matter is, how- 

 ler, one which affects all the modern in- 

 fcitutions of university rank, and several of the 

 tatements in this article have been derived from 

 independent sources. We hope that the action 

 irhich is now being taken will prevent a mistake 

 ;ing made which must inevitably lead, sooner 

 )r later, to the realisation of the ideals of 

 lerman militarism at the expense of Great 

 kitain. 



OLD-FASHIONED NATURAL HISTORY 

 AND NEW-FASHIONED BOTANY. 

 The Hundred Best Animals. By Lilian Gask. 

 ^Pp. 304. (London: G. G. Harrap and Co., 

 1914.) Price 75. 6d. net. 

 \) True Stories about Horses. By Lilian Gask. 

 Pp. 266. (London : G. G. Harrap and Co., n.d.) 

 Price 35. 6d. net. 



NO. 2400, VOL. 96] 



(3) The Human Side of Plants. By Royal Dixon. 



Pp. xix + 201. (London: Grant Richards, Ltd., 



191 5.) Price 75. 6d. net. 

 (i) 'T"'^HE stories of a hundred animals of dis- 

 , X tinction are told to two children by a 

 veteran who had been a mighty hunter in his day, 

 and good stories they are. He talked mostly 

 about mammals — lion and tiger, seal and walrus, 

 elephant and ape, camel and llama, antelope and 

 deer, sloth and ant-eater, kangaroo and duckbill. 

 But, like Solomon, the veteran spake also, in the 

 last five of the twenty-nine chapters, " of fowl, 

 and of creeping things, and of fishes." We are 

 not sure that Solomon would always have agreed 

 with him; for instance, about the water reservoirs 

 in the camel's stomach; or as to the advisability 

 of telling children that wise folk think the tallest 

 animal in the world has lengthened out its neck 

 by so much reaching ; or that " squirts out " is the 

 right word to use in regard to the exudation of 

 toad's poison. But there is no doubt that the 

 book is one which children will thoroughly enjoy 

 and also profit by. 



The talks are natural, interesting, instructive, 

 with fresh news to tell, and with no tiresome 

 "writing down." Just now and again the old 

 Nimrod nods a little ; for instance, on the last page 

 when he says, in a way quite unlike himself : "We 

 come to understand the highest examples of the 

 different animals — call them best if you will — by 

 comparing them with others of the same species 

 below them in the scale, whether of physical 

 strength and beauty or intelligence." He was 

 also nodding when he said that the heron " is 

 very scare in England now." But these are trivial 

 matters; the important fact is that this is a thor- 

 oughly sound and successful book to be cordially 

 recommended. It is adorned and illumined by a 

 hundred excellent illustrations — often strikingly 

 alive — from original photographs by A. F. W. 

 Vogt. 



(2) The second book from the same pen is also 

 intended for young readers. It contains many 

 well-told true stories about horses. We are told 

 of the doctor's horse that defended its sleeping 

 master ; of the horse that fought and defeated the 

 wolves it had been left to satiate ; of an Arabian 

 horse that twice saved a soldier's life ; of a number 

 of mares, some past foaling, which combined for 

 six hours to lift the foals above the level of a 

 flood ; of a Shetland pony that saved a child from 

 drowning ; of a horse that kept a long vigil over a 

 dead soldier; of another that lifted a little child 

 out of harm's way, and of many more besides. 

 As will be seen from the examples cited, the 

 stories are of a homely, old-fashioned type, and wf 



