74 



NATURE 



[Mav 25, 189; 



maintains that we are not justified in destroying them 

 without adequate reasons. " The struggle for existence 

 may force us to kill them for food or for our own self preser- 

 vation ; but the mere sportsman, and still less, he who 

 destroys animals simply in order to display his skill in 

 shooting, can show no moral sanction for his acts." 

 And after a strong protest against cruelty to animals, he 

 adds : — " Fortunately for us, the memory of the unutter- 

 able wrongs which dumb animals have sustained at 

 man's hands cannot have been transmitted by them from 

 generation to generation, or assuredly the entire Animal 

 Kingdom would rise up in fierce rebellion against the 

 common oppressor ! " 



On the whole, the book is very pleasingly and clearly 

 written ; it is divided into a number of short chapters 

 each treating some well-defined aspect of the question ; 

 it contains examples of the best and most instructive 

 facts illustrative of animal intelligence, and it is pervaded 

 by a feeling of sympathy for the whole of animated nature. 

 It is a pity that it is not issued in a more attractive form, 

 the paper covers being hardly suited for such a book ; 

 but it is nevertheless well adapted as an introduction to 

 the study of the subject, and will be especially interesting 

 to those who think highly of the intelligence as opposed 

 to the mere instincts of animals, and who are not afraid 

 to recognise that even in their mental faculties and 

 emotions the lower animals have much in common with 

 ourselves. Alfred R. Wallace. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



The Principles of Agriculture. By G. Fletcher. (Derby : 

 The Central Educational Company, Ld.) 



This little book is essentially a note-book of lectures given 

 by the author, at the instance of the Technical Education 

 Committee of the Derbyshire County Council, to school- 

 masters and others intending to become teachers of 

 agriculture. The syllabus covers the ground usually 

 gone over in such a course, the arrangement of subjects 

 being somewhat similar to that adopted by Fream in his 

 well-known " Elements." The book contains, in a small 

 space, a good deal of information, and, at the same time, 

 indicates points with which the student should make him- 

 self acquainted, but which could not be given in detail 

 in a work of this kind. It seems to be carefully written, 

 and, on the whole, very free from errors ; it will, no doubt, 

 be a useful guide both to teachers and students of agri- 

 culture. 



All Bord lie la Mer : Giologie, Faune, et Flore lies CStes 

 di France. Par le Dr. E. L. Trouessart. (Paris : J. 

 B. Bailliere et Fils, 1893.) 



It often happens that people who go to the seaside for a 

 holiday would be glad, if they could, to learn something 

 about the scientific meaning of the objects by which they 

 are surrounded. They have neither time nor inclination 

 for the study of elaborate works, and as a rule there is 

 not much to be gained by the perusal of local guide- 

 books. Persons of this class in France will find exactly 

 what they want in the present volume. The author 

 gives first a sketch of the geology of the French coasts 

 from Dunkirk to Biarritz, then deals with such marine 

 plants as are likely to interest the reader, and finally pre- 

 sents an account of marine animals. The style is clear 

 and unpretending, and the text is illustrated with no 

 fewer than 149 figures. 



NO. 1230, VOL. 48] 



LETTERS TO THE EDIT 01.. 



The Editor does not hold himself resfonsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to correspond with the writers of, reiecled 

 manuscripts intended f:r this or any other part of iiXTVViV.. 

 No notice is taien of anonymous communications.} 



Mr. H. O. Forbes's Discoveries in the Chatham 

 Islands. 



In a recent letter in Nature (vol. xlviii. p. 27), under the 

 above heading, Mr. Wallace has done me the honour to make 

 some observations on the conclusions I have arrived at on other 

 discoveries I have made in the Chatham Islands, and on the 

 evidence adduced in my paper read before the Royal 

 Geographical Society on March 12 last, i.e., that an Antarctic 

 continent — which I may name Antipodea — is necessary to ex- 

 plain the distribution of life in the southern hemisphere. Mr. 

 Wallace says, "It is this tremendous hypothesis which appears 

 to me to be not only quite unnecessary to explain the facts, but 

 also to be inadequate to explain them. If one thing more than 

 another is clear, it is that these comparatively small flightless 

 birds were developed, as such, in or near to tlie islands where 

 they are now found, since they could not possibly have arisen 

 on any extensive land inhabited by carnivorous mammals and 

 reptiles, and, if introduced into such a country could not long 

 survive." If by this Mr. Wall.ace means that only the flight- 

 lessness of these birds, apart from their general structure a> 

 members of the genus Aphanapteryx, arose in or near the 

 islands where they now are, he still leaves the, to me, greater 

 difficulty unexplained how two so closely related species of the 

 same genus should have arisen in regions separated by nearly 

 one half of the circumference of the globe. For it has to be re- 

 membered that .-iphanapteryx belongs to the Ocydromine group 

 of the Rails, which is quite unknown in the norlhein hemisphere, 

 and, therefore, to have reached "Lemuria" (the ancient land of 

 which Madagascar, Mauritius, Bourbon, Rodriguez, and the 

 Seychelles, are the fragments) the genus must have arisen in- 

 dependently in both regions where its species are now found, or 

 it spread from one or the other centre, or from some common land 

 by flight. Mr. Wallace has himself pointed out that to explain 

 the presence of the flightless Notornis and Ocydromus in two 

 groups of islands in the New Zealand region requires a land 

 connection, for it has been hitherto considered nn axiom of 

 geographical distribution that the regions inhabited by the same 

 genus or species have been continuous, or have been, at all 

 events, such as to afford possibilities of migration from one to 

 another. If Aphanapteryx could have spread from the Chatham 

 Islands to Mauritius by flight, surely Notornis and Ocydromus 

 did not require a land connection to reach from New Zealand 

 to the nearer outlying islands, for they may equally have lost ■ 

 the use of their wings only after they reached their present 

 homes. 



When Mr. Wallace asserts that these birds " could not pos- 

 sibly have arisen on any extensive land inhabited by carnivorous 

 mammals and reptiles," he affirms what does not really appear 

 to me to carry with it conviction without more proof. Rails 

 belong to a family of birds that have become of world-wide dis- 

 tribution, not improl)al>ly because of the habits of its members 

 enabling them to escape destruction. They are better runners 

 than flyers ; they are water and marsh-loving birds, many of them 

 living in reed and rush brakes, and the dense vegetation sur- 

 rounding marshes, amid which pursuit is difficult or impossible. 

 I was much struck when in the Chatham Islands by observing 

 how the habits of the small Ortys^omelra tabuensis protected it 

 The upland districts of Wharekauri are covered by a very dense 

 rush-like vegetation — the tcrahiiia of the natives — in which this 

 little Rail lives. We hunted over acres and acres of country 

 with the aid of a dog well trained to pursue and catch this 

 species, but only after two days did we succeed in securing a 

 specimen. We could see that the dog disturbed plenty of birds, 

 but so rapidly could they make their w.ay through the terahina 

 that they all escaped, for they never took to flight. The 

 Cabahis modesttis is a nocturnal bird hiding securely in hollow 

 trees and grass thickets all day. Notornis inhabited, and per- 

 haps still inh.abits, the dense scrub of the south-western poilion 

 of New Zealand, and could have there escaped the severest perse- 

 cution of cainivorous animals and reptiles. But even \i .Ipliatiap- 

 Icryx had been subjected to the incessant and successful attacks of 

 such enemies, its extinction, whether early or late, would de- 



