October 6, 1892J 



NA rURE 



537 



the description of the jet black larva of the Peacock 

 Butterfly as " dusky greenish " (p. 21), the assertion that 

 the present writer discovered uric acid in the excreta of 

 Vanessid imagos (p. 41), the implication that leaf-mining 

 larvae eat only the deeper tissues of the leaf instead of 

 everything between the upper and lower cuticle (p. 63), 

 the description of "red eye-like markings upon the blue 

 underwings" of the Eyed Hawk Moth (p. 134), in which 

 red and blue should of course be transposed. 



The book is well printed, misprints such as " Tortorix " 

 for "Tortrix" (83), '"freshly-moulded" for "freshly- 

 moulted" (67), "distinction" for "distinctive" (185) being 

 fortunately uncommon. 



The coloured plates are good, although it would have 

 been a pleasure to see the wings of one of the resting 

 Volucellce in Plate IV. folded one over the other in a 

 very characteristic attitude. The antennas of the Kallima 

 shown at rest in Plate II. would have been concealed, 

 and the same applies to the figures of the Buff-tip and 

 Lappet Moths. The worst figure is that of the Bee 

 Hawk Moth on p 245, in which an entirely wrong notion 

 of the opaque border to the wings is conveyed. The 

 source of the figures is not mentioned. 



Edward B. Poulton. 



SUNSHINE. 



Sunshine. By Amy Johnson, L.L.A. (London : Mac- 

 millan and Co., and New York, 1892.) 



'PHIS book is likely to puzzle anyone who may by 

 ^ chance pick it up and glance casually over the 

 pages, more especially if he should happen to first open 

 it towards the end and find two chapters headed 

 " Tommy's Dream," concluding with a conversational 

 account of how " the nurse puts baby into a bath, generally 

 too hot or too cold, and scrubs away as if he were a 

 wooden doll. Poor baby's skin is red all over, and he 

 screams with pain," &c. On the other hand, in the early 

 part of the book, several familiar figures, such as pictures 

 of ice flowers, or diagrams of the action of simple lenses, 

 of total reflection, of the rainbow, &c., show that" Sun- 

 shine '' is, in spite of the nursery episode, in reality con- 

 nected with physical science. As a matter of fact the 

 authoress has taken a number of easy experi- 

 ments and every-day observations, and has amplified 

 and explained them in a simple and often very charm- 

 ing manner, adopting for the purpose the conversational 

 form as between herself, called teacher, and, judging by 

 the number of Christian names of the children addressed, 

 a host of youngsters. 



The conversational style is out of fashion just now, but 

 no objection can be taken on that account. What is 

 of far more importance is the general effect produced 

 upon the mind of the child. The writer of this notice 

 well remembers how the attempt was made to beguile 

 him into being interested in conversations between a 

 horridly precocious child Willie and his papa. Willie 

 always said the right thing, and always made the right 

 mistakes, so that much instruction was to be gathered 

 from the answers and corrections of his papa. The 

 NO. I I 97, VOL. 46] 



writer, no doubt, did acquire some general information ; 

 perhaps he did not resent the attempted deception, but 

 he is sure that he would like to have punched Willie's 

 head, or to have made him suffer in some way that is 

 pleasing to the boyish imagination. In the present 

 instance the risk of arousing open hostility on the part 

 of children who may receive instruction from the pages 

 I of " Sunshine " is largely reduced by the fact that the 

 conversation is very one-sided ; the children are made to 

 say very little in these talks — they are not quite lectures, 

 but more lectures than conversations. Whether " teacher" 

 says too much, or in the attempt to appeal to the imagin- 

 ation rather than the reasoning faculties of her audience 

 rambles too far afield, is a question of taste. Many 

 parts of the book demand the highest praise, though in 

 some the authoress seems to have gone beyond reason- 

 able bounds. For instance, after a most clear and excel- 

 lent illustration of the method by which the distance of 

 the moon from the earth is determined, in which the 

 children are made to find by folding paper how far it is 

 from the table to a ball hanging up in the room, the 

 imagination of the reader is stimulated as follows : — 



*• At the beginning of our ' talk ' about the moon, I tried 

 to impress upon you what old travellers you were. Do 

 you remember how far you have been each year? 



(585,000,000 miles.) And you, Tom, are .''" 



"Seven." "What age are you, Percy?" "Eight." 

 "And you, Minnie?" "Nearly eight." "You shall 

 work that sum out for me on your slates. We will neg- 

 lect the travelling since last birthday. Multiply 

 585,000,000 by 8, Percy. Four thousand six hundred and 

 eighty millions of miles, you say. Have you felt any pain 

 or sickness ? Are you willing then to accompany me for a 

 little * out ' to call on our next neighbour, the moon ? It 

 is only 240,000 miles, and would take us a little over 

 three hours and a half at earth's usual rate of travelling. 

 Do you think your mothers would trust you with me if 

 I guaranteed to bring you safely back again ? Most of 

 you say ' Yes.' What is it that Ethel is saying to you, 

 Lucy ?" " She wants to know if we are really going, or 

 if it's 'only pretending.'" "That is a question which 

 Ethel must decide for herself. Those who are going 

 with us must be ready in time, or they will be left behind. 

 Before we make a journey it is usual to consider, not 

 merely the distance, but a few other matters also, such 

 as— ' What to take with us,' ' How long we shall be 

 away,' ' Where we can get lodgings,' ' Whether we should 

 take shawls, umbrellas, &c.,' and so many other con- 

 siderations, that I am afraid we can't go to-day. Make 

 all inquiries at home, and let me know how many of you 

 are prepared to go." 



As has been stated, the imagination rather than the 

 reason is being constantly appealed to, and for the 

 purpose the most picturesque language is employed. 

 Perhaps the most striking example is to be found in a 

 chapter headed, " The Mill with Stained Glass Windows." 

 A beam of sunlight is made to pass through a condenser 

 and into a slit. Then slips of coloured glass, red, green, 

 and violet, are placed edge to edge over the slit, and the 

 red-green-violet line of light is looked at through a scratch 

 in a piece of smoked glass. The resulting diffraction 

 phenomenon is the mill with stained glass windows. The 

 upper story with violet windows has a greater number 

 closer together than the second story with the green 

 windows, and there is the same difference between this 



