J.\NUARY 28, 19 1 5] 



NATURE 



591 



particularly opportune at a time when, in the modest civilisation issumg so readily from one 



name of the beneficent gfoddess Hyg^eia, people benign tree. After the same fashion the author 



who ignore the marvellous interdependence of ali hangs upon the betel-nut-palm and other common 



the specific parts of the orgfanic world, are pro- natural objects piquant discourses, full of sage 



posing^ to exterminate blindly large elements of hints and quaint diversions, on social and cere- 



the mammalian fauna of great tracts of country in monial attitudes characteristic of the East. On 



Africa. the other hand the essay on Indian poverty goes, 



(2) To entitle these promiscuous sketches "bird 

 biographies " seems at first sight rather to take 

 bird-bolts for cannon-bullets, until one 

 considers the illustrations, and at- 

 tempts to realise the time and labour, 

 and the prodigious patience, to say 

 nothing of the numerous kinds of 

 technical aptitude, that they represent. 

 These illustrations are the feature of 

 the book, and they do equal credit to 

 the skill and the taste of the author 

 and his assistant ; all the familiar 

 British birds are here, from the ousel 

 cock so black of hue to the wren with 

 little quill, as well as many that are 

 not so familiar, as the buzzard, the 

 raven, the grey goose, the grebe, and 

 the dipper. The admirable series that 

 portrays the seven ages (more or less) 

 of the buzzard are quite perfect. 



In their literary and other aspects 

 the sketches are simple, careful, and 

 unlaboured, and are replete in 

 observation and information at first 

 hand. 



(3) Of this little volume about half 

 is concerned with animals, and the 

 rest with ."other matters" relating to 

 India — stories woven round familiar 

 Indian types, sketches of social and 

 ethnological and philological interest, 

 brief flights to the borderland of 

 politics and economics, etc. 



A charming little essay on the coco- 

 nut-tree may be selected as illustrating 

 to perfection not only the author's 

 happy knack of finding tongues in 

 trees and good in everything, but also 

 the quickness and diversity of his 

 fancv and his easy grace of expression. 

 Here, starting from a familiar com- 

 modity of the sweet-shop, he suggests 

 an Oriental sea-shore with its back- 

 ground of palms swaying in the salt- 

 laden breeze, and, like the old traveller 

 Ludovico di \'arthema, tells in a few 

 significant words how Cocos nuciferu 

 is still the tree of life to the village 

 communities that dwell beneath its 

 kindly shade, bringing from the won- 

 derful earth unfailing gifts of food, oil, wine, fuel, 

 timber, and fibre for spinning, besides building- 

 material and domestic utensils almost ready-made. 

 In an age of mechanical crafts, so confident of its 

 " progress " as to forget that a polity not surely 

 rooted in agriculture is at its best an interesting 

 pathological specimen and at its worst an unholy 

 chaos, it is a joy mdeed to find a popular writer 

 who can reveal so clearly the paraphernalia of a 

 NO. 2361, VOL. 94] 



but with the same humane touch, into the etio- 

 logy of certain prevalent diseases of the body 



Kingfisher outsiile her nesting bole. From "Bird Biographies and other Bird SIcetches." 



politic, and criticises with severity but without 

 rancour the arrogance of the complacent zealots 

 who aspire to cure them. 



The essays on animals are full of humorous sug- 

 gestions. The best are those which recount the 

 author's own obserA'ations and reflections upon 

 living creatures, although those in which by an 

 ingenious blend of adroit jest and teleological 

 version of fact the author — ably supported by the 



