484 



NATURE 



[March 23, 189; 



monotonous and unattractive existence. In one of his 

 glowing passages Mr. Hudson thus describes and per- 

 sonifies tlie war between nature and man. 



" He scatters the seed, and when he looks for the green 

 heads to appear, the earth opens, and lo ! an army of 

 long-faced yellow grasshoppers come forth ! She too, 

 walking invisible at his side, had scattered her miraculous 

 seed along with his. He will not be beaten by her, he 

 slays her striped and spotted creatures ; he dries up her 

 marshes ; he consumes her forests and prairies with fire, 

 and her wild things perish in myriads ; he covers her 

 plains with herds of cattle, and waving fields of corn, and 

 orchards of fruit-bearing trees. She hides her bitter 

 wrath in her heart, secretly she goes out at dawn of day 

 and blows her trumpet on the hills summoning her innu- 

 merable children to her aid. Nor are they slow to hear. 

 From north and south, from east and west, they come in 

 armies of creeping things, and in clouds that darken the 

 air. Mice and crickets swarm in the fields ; a thousand 

 insolent birds pull his scarecrows to pieces, and carry off 

 the straw stuffing to build their nests ; every green thing 

 is devoured ; the treeSj stripped of their bark stand like 

 great white skeletons in the bare desolate fields, cracked 

 and scorched by the pitiless sun. When he is in despair 

 deliverance comes ; famine falls on the mighty host of 

 his enemies ; they devour each other and perish utterly. 

 Still he lives to lament his loss ; to strive still 

 unsubdued and resolute. And she, too, is unsubdued ; 

 she has found a new weapon it will take him long to 

 wrest from her hands. Out of the many little humble 

 plants she fashions the mighty noxious weeds ; they 

 spring up in his footsteps, following him everywhere, and 

 possess his fields like parasites, sucking up their moisture 

 and killing their fertility. Everywhere as if by a miracle, 

 is spread the mantle of rich, green, noisome leaves, and 

 the corn is smothered in beautiful flowers that yield only 

 bitter seed and poison fruit. With her beloved weeds she 

 will wear out his spirit and break his heart ; she will sit 

 still at a distance while he grows weary of the hopeless 

 struggle ; and at last, when he is ready to faint, she will 

 go forth once more, and blow her trumpet on the hills 

 and call her innumerable children to fall on him and de- 

 stroy him utterly." 



This, the author tells us, is no fancy picture, but one 

 painted from nature in true colours. If so it is not encour- 

 aging for emigrants ; but then, the climate is superb, and 

 it is a proverb that " once in a hundred years a man dies 

 in Patagonia." Then, again, the bird music is unsurpassed; 

 there are numerous exquisite songsters ; and of one of 

 them — the mocking bird, he declares that the song is so 

 varied and beautiful that all the music of our song-thrush 

 might be taken out of it and not be much missed. Azara 

 declared that there were as many and as good songsters 

 in Paraguay and La Plata as in Europe, and Mr. Hudson 

 agrees with him. The reason why Darwin and other 

 travellers thought otherwise is, because most of the South 

 American songsters are shy wood- birds which rarely ap- 

 proach man's dwellings, and are therefore only heard by 

 those who seek them ; whereas in Europe they are mostly 

 species which haunt gardens and orchards, and cultivated 

 fields, and are thus more or less familiar to every one. 



In a chapter on "Sight in Savages" it is maintained 

 that they have no superiority in this respect to civilised 

 man ; and that what often seems like better sight is merely 

 trained observation of objects which it is essential for 

 them to know. There is an amusing story of a middle- 

 aged Gaucho, who laughed and jeered at an Englishman 

 for wearing spectacles, and would not believe that bits of 

 NO. 122 I. VOL. 47] 



glass over his eyes could possibly make him see better. 

 The gentleman persuaded the man to try them, and they 

 happened exactly to suit his sight, which had gradually 

 grown imperfect without his knowing it. He stared round, 

 utterly amazed, and then shouted : — " Angels of heaven, 

 what is this I see ! What makes the trees so green — they 

 were never so green before ! I can count their leaves ! And 

 the cart over there — why it is red as blood." And he went 

 up to it to be sure it had not been fresh painted. 

 There is also a chapter — "Concerning Eyes"— dealing 

 with their characteristic colours, their scintillation under 

 excitement, and the uses of these peculiarities, a subject 

 to which Mr. Hudson has given much attention. Many 

 old Indian burial places and village sites were found, with 

 abundance of arrow-heads, flint knives, scrapers, mortars 

 and pestles, stone anvils, pottery, and other objects. 

 There were two kinds of arrow-heads, some large and 

 very rude, others smaller and exquisitely finished, the 

 former found mostly on the plateau, the latter in the 

 valley. One of the village sites, where the greatest 

 number of objects was found, had been buried seven or 

 eight feet, and was exposed by heavy rains, which had 

 washed away great masses of gravel and sand. Many 

 of the smaller arrow-heads were of crystal, agate, green 

 yellow, or horn-coloured flint, and were perfect gems of 

 colour and workmanship, and these were all found at one 

 spot. Unfortunately, most of the finest specimens, which 

 had been packed separately for security, were lost on his 

 homeward journey — "a severe blow," Mr. Hudson says, 

 " which hurt me more than the wound I had received on 

 the knee." 



Although this volume cannot have the same absorbing 

 interest for the naturalist as the author's previous work, it 

 is yet full of suggestive observations and reflections, and 

 gives us a vivid picture of both animate and inanimate 

 nature in one of the least known portions of the southern 

 hemisphere. The volume is nicely got up, and is illustrated 

 with a number of landscapes and figures of men and 

 animals in the same style as in the author's former work. 

 Alfred R. Wallace. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Ueber das Verhalten des Pollens und die Befruchtungs- 

 vorgdnge bet den Gymtiospennen. Von Eduard 

 Strasburger. (Jena : Gustav Fischer, 1892.) 



This forms the fourth part of Prof. Strasburger's " Histo- 

 logische Beitrage," and it is largely taken up with an 

 examination of segmentation in pollen-grains of the 

 gymnosperms, and the contents of, and processes in, the 

 pollen-tubes. Recent discoveries had led Strasburger to 

 doubt the correctness of his former interpretation of the 

 contents of the pollen-tubes, and his further researches 

 have "confirmed in a surprising manner" the results 

 obtained by Belajeff in his paper on Taxus baccata, en- 

 titled "Zur Lehrevon den PoIlenschJauchen der Gymno- 

 spermen." Strasburger is also essentially in accord 

 with Belajeff's generalisations therefrom. Two double 

 plates illustrate division in the pollen-grain, the develop- 

 ment of the pollen-tube, and the further processes of fer- 

 tilisation in various gymnosperms, including Taxus, 

 Pinus, Ginkgo, and Welwitschia. An unusual condition 

 is shown of cell-division in a pollen-grain of Ginks^a. 

 Usually two or three " prothallium cells ' are formed, a'nd 

 in part disappear before the protrusion of the pollen'tube 



