OCTOHER 17. 1895] 



NA TURE 



593 



Ml'. Stuait-W onle\- discourses with aulliority on liou to 

 shoot slaii^'hter ?— this tame " Byrd of singular beauty," 

 when driven in bevies slowly and with not a little per- 

 suasion just sufficiently far away to " home," on being 

 flushed, at a proper altitude over the guns, which are 

 thicklv stationed in hiding to rain a murderous hail on 

 them. The shooting of the wild-lDred bird is, however, 

 nobler sport. " Xothing strikes one more in Norfolk," says 

 Mr. Stuart-Wortley, " especially in the heath district, than 

 the prevalence of pheasants everywhere . . . and it adds 

 greatly to the charm of a partridge drive when it is varied 

 by a few rocketing pheasants out of the belt jou are 

 standing by, or when they rise high off the heath and 

 come over w ith the partridges, and quite as fast. . . . The 

 late October days in Norfolk and .Suffolk, especially 

 where there is heath, are among the most fascinating to 

 be got in England." 



Mr. Innes-.Shand plays on our salivary glands by e.\- 

 tolling the excellence of the bird " when she is in the 

 dish," roast and with bread-sauce, and in many a fas- 

 cinating style besides that "sublimest form of art . . . the 

 faisiui a lit Stiinfi'-Alliancc." .-Mtogether "' The Pheasant '" 

 is, as remarked abo\e, a delightful compagiion dc 7'oyage, 

 and will 1)e found in many a portmanteau in the late 

 October days. The ten well-produced full-page plates 

 add much to the attractiveness of the volume. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



The Elements of Botany. By Francis Uarwin, M.A.,' 

 M.B., K.R.S., Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, 

 and Reader of Botany in the University. (Cambridge : 

 University Press, 1895.} 

 l.N this little book the elements of botany are presented 

 in a more refreshing form than is too often the case. 

 The author has chosen to emphasise certain principles 

 and phenomena of morphological or of physiological 

 importance, rather than to crowd his pages with vast 

 numbers of facts. \'arious plants arc requisitioned to 

 sene as illustrations of the different subjects under 

 treatment ; and thus the student will certainly acquire 

 a clearer and more general conception of what, for in- 

 stance, a flowering plant is, and how it lives, than would 

 have been possible had only one example been selected 

 as a type, even though this had been far more exhaustively 

 dealt with. 



There are some matters, howc\er, in which it may be 

 doubted whether the method of treatment adopted will 

 commend itself equally to most botanists. Thus, although 

 Mr. Darwin says that he advisedly puts the doctrine of 

 alternation of generations into the background, many 

 will doubtless regret his decision. It is true that with- 

 out the introduction of a few more intermediate types, 

 the question would possess, as the author says, but little 

 mterest for the elementary student. But in view of the 

 great importance, both of the facts and of the compari- 

 sons based upon them, one cannot help wishing that the 

 general bearings of the question could lia\ e Ijeen indicated 

 somewhat more fully. 



.A second matter is the employment of the term hark 

 in the popular, as opposed to its more technical, sense. 

 l5otanists have come to attach a special and restricted 

 meaning to the term ; and though it is no doubt highly 

 improper to pirate English words, still this is done in 

 every technical department, and thus, in spite of its 

 admitted inconvenience to the beginner, we think the 

 balance of advantage is in favour of the retention of the 

 appropriated word in its restricted significance. 



iiut these are cases in which there is room for difference 



I of opinion : there «iU lie nunc .it all on the question as- 

 to the merits of Mr. Darwin's book considered as a 

 ; whole. It is an admirable work which both teacher and 

 I student will cordially and deservedly welcome. 



The Book of British Hau'k-Moths, a Popular and 



Practical Handbook for Lepidoptcrists. By W. J. 



Lucas. With illustrations from Nature by the Author.- 



(London : L. Upcott Gill, 1895.) 

 Thf.rk is a great flood of books on the larger and more 

 showy British Lepidoptcra issuing from the press at the 

 present time ; but so long as the information which they 

 contain is fairly accurate, and they place on record a 

 portion of the floating information derived from periodicals 

 or personal observation, we do not see that the fact is to 

 be regretted. At least it is a sign that an intelligent 

 interest in entomology is now taken by a large number of 

 persons who are not entomologists or collectors them- 

 selves : for we do not believe that there is a sufficiently 

 large number of entomologists to buy up the large 

 editions of popular books which are now offered to them ■ 

 iJiey must appeal to a considerable number of outsiders 

 as well. 



The book before us is restricted to a very small 

 group of British moths, the Sphingidce proper, 

 numbering only seventeen species, several of which 

 are possibly only casual visitors rather than permanent 

 residents. Consequently, the author has been able to 

 treat of the subject in considerable detail, though a good 

 deal of the introductory part of the book deals with 

 the collecting and preserving of I.cpidoptcra, rather 

 from a general point of view, than as specially ap- 

 plicable to SphingidcT. The illustrations consist of 

 folding plain plates, representing the larva, pupa,^ 

 and imago of each species, the earlier stages, when 

 not observed by the author hmiself, being usually 

 copied from Buckler's work on larva?. There are 

 also occasional woodcuts in the text. The letterpress is 

 pleasantly, though sometimes hastily, written, and is 

 fairly complete and up to date : and most of the illustra- 

 tions are good. On the last plate, the names of the two 

 bee hawk-molhs appear to have been reversed, probably 

 by a printers error. The information given is, we believe, 

 accurate ; but every entomologist will be able to suppie- 

 ment it according to his own experience. Thus, it might 

 have been stated that Sinerintltus tilicr (the lime hawk- 

 moth) is one of the commonest of the Sphingidce in the 

 suburbs of London. Sphin.x pina.^tri 1 the pine hawk- 

 mothi is mentioned as sometimes found at rest on the 

 trunks of pine trees. So it is : but it will also rest on 

 other trees, and on the continent it is often found 

 resting on the trunks of the poplars which often fringe 

 the roads in the neighbourhood of pine forests. 



W. F. K. 



Biology Notes. \'ol. i. Edited by David Houston, F.L.S. 



Pp. 290. (Chelmsford ; Technical Laboratories, 1895.) 

 This volume is a collection of bulletins published 

 monthly by the Technical Instruction Committee of 

 the Essex County Council, as an aid to the teaching 

 of biology. It contains information bearing upon the 

 applications of biology to the industrial pursuits of the 

 county, and notes of interest to biological students. 

 Among the subjects of short articles are ergot and its 

 physiological effects, bracken poisoning of cattle,, 

 biological aspects of dairying, injurious insects, diseases 

 of cultivated plants, zoology on the Essex coast, and 

 spraving experiments ; and there are also included in the 

 volume several detailed syllabuses of courses of 

 practical instruction in vegetable and animal biology. 

 The " Notes " are well illustrated, and must be of great 

 assistance to the students in the classes controlled by the 

 Essex County Council. Other County Councils would do- 

 well to issue monthly bulletins of the kind coUefted in 

 this volume. 



NO. 1355, VOL. 52] 



