June 8, 1893] 



NA TURE 



12- 



knowledge. Now this testimony the Council both re- 

 ceives and has the opportunity of carefully sifting. 

 Having arrived at a judgment accordingly, it appears to 

 me that that judgment should not be lightly upset unless 

 in the almost inconceivable case of its being utterly 

 outrageous. 



Councils have erred in the past, and I suppose the 

 Council of the Royal Society cannot claim infallibility. 

 It might be necessary therefore for the general body of 

 fellows to correct its action. The election of a fellow is 

 an irretrievable step. To oppose it is a grave but it may 

 be a justifiable procedure. But to over-ride the Council's 

 discretion in not selecting a particular candidate is a much 

 graver one. Non-selection is not an irretrievable injury 

 and if in any one year it may seem to inflict some in- 

 justice on a particular candidate its redress when justified 

 by merit is not difficult of attainment on a subsequent 

 occasion. But if a precedent were established for taking 

 the matter out of the nands of the Council, peace and 

 good feeling in the ranks of the Society would soon vanish. 

 In time every election would be the occasion of a con- 

 flict and no one who valued his self-respect would care 

 to serve on the Council. Nor is there any reason to 

 think that any substantial gain would accrue. A man 

 may be rushed to the front by a wave of temporary and 

 emotional popularity. Such a man, if the fellows 

 acquired the habit of meddling with the Council's pre- 

 rogative of selection, might be forced prematurely upon 

 the Society. In the long run it is not improbable that 

 those who resorted to such a practice might live to regret 

 their precipitancy. W. T. Thiselton-Dyer. 



VERTEBRATES OF ARGYLL AND THE 



INNER HEBRIDES. 



A Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides. 



By J. A. Harvie-Brown and T. E. Buckley. (Edinburgh : 



David Douglas, 1892.) 

 "pERTINACITY in an endeavour to carry out the re- 

 -•- suits of a fixed idea has almost always been regarded 

 as a virtue, even when the principle involved has seemed 

 to be hopelessly mistaken, and thus the adherents of the 

 Stuart and other lost causes still find sympathisers at the 

 present day ; but when none can doubt the value of the 

 idea, the pertinacity with which it is supported, provided 

 that obstinacy is left out, becomes a virtue that in these 

 practical days is not easily exaggerated. Such perti- 

 nacity is conspicuously exhibited by the authors of the 

 book before us, Mr. Harvie-Brown and his worthy 

 coadjutor, Mr. Buckley. This "Vertebrate Fauna of 

 Argyll and the Inner Hebrides" is the////? of a series of 

 volumes, the inception of which is vastly creditable to 

 its founder, the gentleman first named, and to all con- 

 cerned in its production— even to the printer's devil and 

 the binder's apprentice. Some of its predecessors have 

 before received notice in these columns ; ' but it has 

 perhaps never been made clear to the readers of Nature 

 that this series of books is placing the zoology of the 

 northern Kingdom on a footing which has not been 

 attained, nor is likely to be attained in the southern part 

 of the island, even though there exist particular EngUsh 



' "A Vertcbrale Fauna of Sutherland, Caithness, and West Cromarty " 

 Nature, xxxi. p. 292; "A Vertebrate Fauna of the Outer Hebrides " 



iNATURl-;, xl. p, 101. ' 



NO. 1232. VOL. 48] 



works — but this solely so far as ornithology is con- 

 cerned — of merit superior to any one of the Scottish 

 productions, the volume on Orkney, which is of remark- 

 able excellence, being perhaps an exception. It is not 

 difficult, however, to account to a considerable extent for 

 this superiority : the proportion of persons with a taste 

 for natural history to the general population being 

 presumably the same in both parts of Great Britain, the 

 enormously greater population of England would 

 naturally furnish a larger number than Scotland is able 

 to show. This is not said in derogation of the northern 

 kingdom. It has always been rich in botanists ; and, 

 among zoologists, the single name of William 

 Macgillivray is enough to cover it with renown. How- 

 ever much his merits, and especially his originality, may 

 have been obscured or underrated in his life-time, he has 

 already been recognised by those who have taken the 

 trouble to inform themselves, and especially by American 

 writers, as the most original British worker in regard to 

 the vertebrate division of animals, since the incompar- 

 able pair — Willughby and Ray. But of Macgillivray 

 this is not the place to speak particularly. On some 

 other occasion we hope we may say more of him, a man 

 whose work by some unhappy fate failed to impress his 

 contemporaries, and whose posthumous volume was 

 oppressed by princely patronage — well-meant but ill- 

 advised. He had little or no experience of "Argyll and 

 the Inner Hebrides," and really does not now come into 

 our story.' 



As a matter of fact it is hard to say who among old 

 naturalists does deserve especial mention in connexion 

 with the Faunal District of which this volume treats. 

 Mr. Harvie-Brown, with the caution characteristic of his 

 nationality, abstains from putting forth the claim of any 

 predecessor; though, as brave men lived before Agamem- 

 non, this district may have had a zoological historian before 

 the laird of Dunipace and Quarter. The late Mr. Henry 

 Davenport Graham — an honest observer if there ever was 

 one — whose pleasant contributions to the ornithology of 

 lona and Mull, illustrated by some of his humorous and 

 very clever sketches, were published in 1890 as a "relief 

 volume " of the present series, belongs of course to the 

 existing epoch, for he died in 1872 ; and moreover his 

 observations were confined to but a small portion — the 

 islands just named — of the district. Thus as regards 

 its ancient history from the zoological point of view, we 

 have an absolute void, since the Statistical Accounts (both 

 Old and New) of the county of Argyll and the Isles give 

 as little information to the purpose as does the often-quoted 

 but seldom-read description of Dean Monro, which was 

 only published in 1774, 225 years after it was written.^ 



To come to closer quarters, we are inclined, though we 

 must say so with diffidence, to question Mr. Harvie- 

 Brown's delimitation of his " Faunal District." In 

 principle he is undoubtedly right, though somehow or 

 other the result does not seem to work out well. His 

 principle was laid down in the first volume of the series^ 

 that on Sutherland, Caithness, and Western Cromarty — 

 and is the marking out of a district by physical features 

 rather than by political boundaries. No naturalist ought 



^ His portrait is given by our authors in their volume on " The Outer 

 Hebrides " 



- A reprint of this very rare worl< was published at Glasgow in 1884 (by 

 Thomas D. Morrison). 



