152 



NA TURE 



[December 13, 1900 



old work of Eisenmenger alone would have afforded 

 him abundant material for a very long essay wherein 

 every statement might have been founded upon fact. 



In the chapters of Dr. Carus's work which are devoted to 

 the " Dawn of a New Era " and " Early Christianity," the 

 same complaint must be made, z.^., he has not used 

 existing materials. Who in these days would attempt to 

 write about Gnosticism without giving a good account of 

 the Pistis Sophia, or of the Book of leu, works from 

 which the most valuable information on the subject is to 

 be derived ? It seems almost as if Dr. Carus had written 

 his book to suit the pictures which he gives, without 

 paying any attention to the system or arrangement of his 

 work. In a treatise of such pretensions we should 

 expect the account of the demon ologies of the various 

 Semitic nations to be kept together, and, as the devils of 

 the Gnostics and early Christians were descendants of 

 the denizens of the Egyptian underworld, they ought to 

 have been described in a connected and systematic 

 manner. It is doubtful how far the histories of the 

 Inquisition and of the persecution of witches have any 

 right to be in a book of this kind, but if they have, they 

 should have been greatly shortened ; in fact, Dr. Carus's 

 work needs careful editing by a skilful but somewhat 

 severe editor. As a picture book it is interesting enough, 

 but as a scientific contribution to the history of an inter- 

 esting and important subject it is, in our opinion, 

 of little value. 



SIR H. MAXWELLS ''MEMORIES OF THE 

 MONTHS." 



Memories of the Months. Second Series. By the Right 

 Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart. Pp. xv + 295. 

 Illustrated. (London : E. Arnold, 1900.) 



IT falls to the lot of but few among us to be all- 

 round sportsmen, good naturalists, entertaining and 

 versatile writers, and philosophers to boot ; and yet all 

 these varied and valuable accomplishments are the attri- 

 butes of the author of the delightful and entertaining 

 volume before us. A few years ago, as the author tells 

 us in the preface, he published selections from his note- 

 books of several seasons under the title quoted above, and 

 these met with such a favourable reception that, at the 

 request of numerous readers from both sides of the 

 Atlantic, he has been induced to print a second series. 

 And the public are decidedly the gainers by this resolve. 

 For whether discussing the kind of salmon-fly best suited 

 to any particular season or river, the utility or otherwise 

 of birds or mammals commonly persecuted by the farmer 

 and the gamekeeper, the kinds of shrubs and plants best 

 suited to escape the depredations of rabbits, the ruthless 

 slaughter of egrets for the sake of their so-called " osprey " 

 plumes, or the accident by which the skeletons of the 

 iguanodons of Bernissart were preserved for the delecta- 

 tion and wonderment of the present generation, he is 

 equally at home, and equally free from any suspicion of 

 dulness and pedantry. 



Nothing, indeed, seems to come amiss to Sir Herbert 



i the matter of a text, and he has the rare faculty of 



making an extract from some abstruse scientific paper 



as full of interest as are his observations on the mammals, 



NO. 1624. VOL. 6^'] 



birds and fishes with which he has come in contact in the 

 ordinary course of a country life or in his field sports. 



Among the subjects to which the author has paid 

 special attention is the so-called vole-plague, which 

 wrought devastation some years ago over wide districts 

 in Scotland. Of the committee appointed to investigate 

 the causes of this invasion, and, if possible, to suggest 

 remedies, he was appointed chairman. And he gives 

 a graphic account of the scene which met the eye during 

 the visits of the committee to the afflicted area, mention- 

 ing the extraordinary number of short-eared owls which 

 flocked to the feast, and of their equally remarkable 

 fecundity as its result. Lappwings, too, are birds which 

 come in for a special share of his attention ; and although 

 he apparently considers that much harm has not been 

 done thus far, yet he urges that shooting a bird at one 

 season and taking its eggs at another, or even conduct- 

 ing both operations simultaneously, is a sure road to its 

 eventual extermination. While deprecating any inter- 

 ference with the collecting of these plovers' eggs, he 

 suggests that the slaughter of the birds themselves should 

 be prohibited. 



An enthusiastic angler, the author holds out hopes of 

 the possible rehabilitation of the salmon in the upper 

 reaches of the Thames, stating that even at the present 

 day the condition of the water at the mouth of that river 

 is such as to offer no barrier to the upward passage of 

 the fish. But he points out that as there are now no 

 salmon-rivers discharging in the neighbourhood of the 

 Thames estuary, it is essential that young salmon must be 

 turned down in that river itself, when there would be hope 

 that some of them would return after their first excursion 

 to the sea. From Thames salmon the transition is easy 

 to the question as to whether Salmo salar really abstains 

 from food while in fresh water. In regard to this 

 latter point, Sir H. Maxwell states that the experience of 

 many anglers is practically in accord with the results of 

 the investigation carried on by the Scottish Fishery Board, 

 as detailed in a "blue-book" published in 1898, namely, 

 that salmon do, as a rule, fast during the period in ques- 

 tion. Against this evidence is, however, advanced the 

 undoubted fact " that salmon in fresh water do take 

 and swallow worms, minnows, and similar objects." And 

 the pertinent question is asked with what object they 

 take them if not to eat. " The simplest solution is prob- 

 ably the true one — namely, that even a physiological fast 

 is compatible with occasional and irregular impulses of 

 appetite, which exactly corresponds with the well-known 

 capriciousness of salmon in taking any lure." 



But to follow the author further in his interesting dis- 

 cussions on fish and fishing would spin out this notice to 

 an inordinate length. And it ought to be mentioned that 

 the mole is one of the animals he considers should be 

 protected rather than destroyed, as it appears to be of 

 mcalculable value in destroying the larvae of " daddy-long- 

 legs" and other equally noxious grubs. On the other 

 hand, Sir Herbert has not a single good word to say for 

 the rabbit, which he terms an " accursed " creature. 



Hitherto we have referred to the author's zoological and 

 sporting notes ; but an equal degree of interest is taken by 

 him in botany, and the mention of the extraordinary 

 abundance of holly blossom in the home counties during 

 the summer of 1899, coupled with his observations on 



