Deoembeb 1, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



281 



if this hypothesis be not correct, he is certainly a very careless 

 writer, and should bring himself to admire the "policy'' as well 

 as the theory " of the sponge." Our remarks are longer than 

 they need have been but for one fact— there is just enough of 

 sense in the book to make it really dangerous. 



Bird Life in an Arctic Spring. The Diaries of Dan 

 Meinertzhagen and R. P. Hornby. (Porter.) Illustrated. This 

 book is a very interesting and touching memorial of a young 

 naturalist cut off at the very beginning of a career which was 

 full of usefulness and had promise of considerable distinction. 

 The book is chiefly composed of young Meinertzhagen's diary, 

 published just as it was written during a three months' ornitho- 

 logical trip to Finnish Lapland. The diary is completed by 

 R. P. Hornby, the friend who accompanied him. It is very 

 interesting, and shows what a keen and intelligent field naturalist 

 the young author was. A chapter is added on his life at home 



Little Auks, from " Bud Lite in an Arctic Spring. 



and at school, and a description is given of the wonderful J 

 collection of living eagles and other raptores which Meinertzhagen I 

 formed at llottisfont Abbey, the residence of his father. Perhaps 

 the chief interest inl the book is contained in the drawings of j 

 birds, which have been reproduced from paintings and careful 

 pen and ink drawings by Meinertzhagen. Some of them are [ 

 faithful copies from the works of well-known bird painters, but ; 

 most are original drawings from Xature. They are all excellent, 

 and had the young artist lived we feel certain that his work ; 

 would have rivalled that of the most famous bird painters. 



Report of the Australasian Association for the Advancenient of 

 Science, held at Si/dnei/, 1898. Edited by Dr. A. Liversidge, f.r.s. 

 Our scientific friends at the Antipodes, in this formidable 

 volume of addresses, reports of research committees, extracts 

 from the minutes of meetings, lists of officers and members, 

 objects and rules of the association, and so on, show their ap- 

 preciation of the modes adopted for the advancement of science 

 in the mother country — they apparently adopt our methods 

 without an effort to modify the effect by shearing the prototype 

 of its many faults. And so we are having additional periodical 

 volumes, each about the size of a family Bible, embracing every 

 imaginable subject, arranged, or disiirranged, higgledy-piggledy, 

 for the hungry student to browse upon at his own sweet will, 

 or have the will squeezed out of him by the ever-increasing 

 avalanche of weighty tomes, the matter of which is too often 

 duplicated and rough-hewn, instead of well-sifted and polished. 

 It would have been to the lasting credit of our scientific workers 

 over the sea if they had infused more of the original, and 

 adopted less of the imitative, element in publishing their pro- 

 ceedings. As they are, however, the volumes, like our own 

 reports, will be more ornamental than useful in our libraries. 

 The keenest thirst for knowledge, and the most determined 

 effort are needed for the extraction of all the available infor- 

 mation on any given subject from these heterogeneous records 

 of scientific research. 



Birds. By A. H. Evans, M.A. (Macmillan.) Illustrated. 

 17s. This book forms Vol. IX. of the now famous library 

 known as the Cambridge Natural History. The author has 

 endeavoured, and we think successfiilly, to give a '' short 



description of the majority of the forms in luany of the families, 

 and of the most typical or important of the innumerable species 

 included in the large passerine order." The book only contains 

 some six hundred pages, printed in large cl 3ar type, so that one 

 cannot expect a detailed description of the birds mentioned, and 

 of course to include even the names of all the known species 

 would have been an impossibility. Mr. Evans has arranged his 

 book very cleverly, and imparts a great deal of sound informa- 

 tion in a very small space. An introductory chapter deals briefly 

 with the structure of birds, their classification, geographical 

 distribution, and migrations. The birds are then dealt with in 

 groups, an ascending scheme of classification being adopted, and 

 a brief summary of the general structure and habits of each 

 group being prefixed. When dealing with a family or genus, 

 the author has been wise in first giving a fairly detailed 

 description of the species best known to English readers, and 



then proceeding to show how 

 other species differ from it. Mr. 

 Evans has performed a very diffi- 

 cult and laborious task admirably 

 the information imparted being, 

 both as regards selection and 

 accuracy, all that could be de- 

 sired in such a book. To 

 ornithologists generally, and 

 especially to the travelling 

 ornithologist, it should prove 

 extremely useful, and giving as 

 mentioned brief descriptions 

 of the plumages of birds, it 

 might be used as a companion 

 to Prof. Newton's well-known 

 " Dictionary of Birds." The 

 drawings, almost all by Mr. G.E. 

 Lodge, must be classed amongst 

 the best work done by that 

 accurate and painstaking artist. 

 Notes upon the Romano- 

 British Settlement at Chipmell, 

 Essex. By J. Chalkley Gould. (Eppiug Forest Museum: Chiug- 

 ford.) Illustrated. 6d. This little pamphlet contains a description 

 of urns and various other vessels which have been found at 

 Chigwell, an early Roman settlement of the period, probably 

 43-410 A.D. The pottery is mostly in fragments, but here and 

 there vessels were found carefully placed, and may have con- 

 tained funeral remains after cremation of the body. Coins 

 were scarce. The illustrations are excellent, and the little 

 brochure will therefore be valuable to those interested in 

 archceology. 



The Geography of Mammals. By William L. Sclater, M.A., 

 and Philip L. Sclater, M.A., PH.D., P.R.^. (KeganPaul.) 12s.net. 

 The political divisions of the earth's surface become so firmly 

 fixed in the mind as the result of the ordinary school instruction 

 in geogi-aphy that it generally comes as a surprise to the ordinary 

 person to hear that more logical boundaries than those decided 

 Ijy historical events are forthcoming. The distribution of 

 animals and plants on the laud areas of the globe has been found 

 to afford quite a different partition from that which political 

 geography recognises. " Europe, for instance, the most im- 

 portant of all the continents politically speaking, is for zoological 

 geographers, as well as for physical, but a small fragment of 

 Asia." Taking the amount of similarity and dissimilarity of 

 animal life as their guide, and for this purpose selecting the 

 mammals, as the " most highly organised and altogether the 

 best known group of the animal kingdom," the authors examine 

 the geographical distribution of this class of animals over the 

 world's surface, and by this means arrive at regions widely 

 different in extent and significance from those of the school. 

 In this way a division of the land-area of the globe into six 

 areas is obtained. This division into the regions known as 

 Australian, Neotropical, Ethiopean, Oriental, Nearctic, and 

 Palaearctic, was proposed by Dr. P. L. Sclater in 1857, and 

 though not universally adopted, is pretty generally recognised 

 as a good basis for a classification of the geographical distribu- 

 tion of animals. The book provides a good account of all six 

 regions, of each of which a clear and coloured map is supplied. 

 Separate chapters deal seriatim with the distribution of the 

 chief mammalian orders, and the abundant illustrations greatly 

 add to the attractiveness of what should prove a very useful 



