I/O 



NA TURE 



[December 21, 1893 



find depicted representations of all the chief scenes 

 which are found in the first fourteen of the tombs that 

 form the subject of the part before us, and it would be 

 difficult to speak too highly of their excellence. The 

 reader who has seen the originals will have them brought 

 again vividly before his mind, and he who has not seen 

 them may rest content that he has under his eyes 

 faithful copies of the paintings reproduced in soft and 

 pleasing tints. The subjects for the coloured plates are 

 wed chosen, and we believe that they will be generally 

 admired. Altogether, the life of what we might describe 

 as an "Egyptian feudal baron," enjoying high favour 

 with the king, is most thoroughly depicted ; the periodic 

 war waged against the blacks in the gold-producing 

 countries, the chase, to keep the body sound and the 

 limbs supple, and the keen personal superintendence of 

 all agricultural operations, whereby the evil results of 

 " absentee landlordism " was done away with, filled the 

 life of these old lords of the soil, who fondly hoped to 

 live in the next world as they lived in this. When we 

 consider the state and luxury in which they lived, 

 and the large households which they maintained, it is 

 not difficult to understand why Egypt was always an 

 object of plunder by neighbouring nations. 



Before we end our brief notice of this most interesting 

 book, we must call attention to the hideous system of 

 transliteration which has been adopted throughout ; but 

 we are wrong in calling it "transliteration," for that is 

 intended to help the poor reader, who is not an expert, 

 how to pronounce ; but this is not, and is only meant 

 to indicate what Mr. Griffith imagines to be the proper 

 way of representing Egyptian characters in English 

 letters. Studies in systems of transliterations are excel- 

 lent gymnastics for experts, but the non-expert resents 

 the constant changes which are being thrust upon 

 him ; and no surer plan of alienating the interest of the 

 general public can be found than that of setting out in 

 a work which is paid for by the general public, and is 

 meant for all readers, a system representing hieroglyphics 

 in English letters, which is both unnecessary and diffi- 

 cult; moreover, we submit that the transliteration which 

 Birch and Lepsius formulated is easy, and at the same 

 time sufficiently correct for all practical purposes. 



A NATURE LOVER'S CORRESPONDENCE. 



Letters to Marco. By George D. Leslie, author of " Our 

 River." (F.ondon : Macmillan and Co., 1893.) 



MR. LESLIE has published a good book with an un- 

 promising title. It contains thirty-seven letters 

 written to an old friend, H. Stacy Marks, R.A. The first 

 of these is dated October 4, 1885 ; the last, March 6, 

 1893. 



Both the author and his friend have attained to 

 eminence as painters, but there is no word in the book 

 which alludes to their professional careers ; and but for 

 an occasional grumble that a picture is not going 

 smoothly, no one would guess that the letters were 

 written from one artist to another. 



The interest of the correspondence centres upon 

 mutual associations connected with the banks of the 

 Thames, where they wandered together in days gone by, 

 NO. 1260, VOL. 49] 



observing nature, sketching her, and nourishing their 

 youth with aspirations, many of which they have lived 

 to realise. 



That was in very early days, when name and fame 

 were still behind the clouds of morning, and when they 

 used to leave London annually with the expressed in- 

 tention of "improving the quality of the British kit- 

 cat," which was still in an unregenerate condition. 



As the interest of an artist's career lies in his struggles, 

 and as the annals of success make commonplace read- 

 ing, we can be grateful that all allusion to professional 

 matters has been left out, though we might have been 

 glad to have more artistic observations, such as that of 

 the black rook flying away with a golden walnut in his 

 mouth. 



One palpable realised ambition is the pretty property 

 which Mr. Leslie has bought at Wallingford, from which 

 he writes to his old friend, describing the condition of 

 their old haunts, and chatting in a desultory way about 

 nature in general. 



As Mr. Marks is an ornithologist, there is a great deal 

 about birds. He observes their ways, and describes the 

 kingfisher hovering over the water, the terns hawking on 

 the shallows, and the poor swallows during a frost 

 cuddling up together to keep warm ; and what is a great 

 comfort, he kills nothing. He is not a sportsman, and not 

 being a naturalist he does not want specimens for dis- 

 section ; he merely observes with loving watchfulness ; 

 in hard winters he scatters food to mitigate the lot of 

 his feathered friends, and it is absolute grief to him when 

 his children bring a poor fledgling which they have cap- 

 tured. This is the great charm of his book, which 

 probably adds little or nothing to our knowledge of 

 natural history ; indeed, its method is the reverse of 

 scientific, and its originality consists in the persistent 

 way in which the author discerns human attributes in 

 birds. They are to him a little people, whose customs 

 and ways of thinking he studies attentively. The robin 

 comes to him to sing a " conciliating song," the blackbird 

 is " proud, vain, and impudent," and the sparrow is 

 "bold, but he knows that he is only tolerated"; and 

 these things are evidently not stated with any conscious 

 or intentional metaphor, but in perfect good faith. The 

 author, in fact, is an amiable enthusiast, who loves 

 nature with his whole soul ; and when the contemplation 

 of birds, beasts, flowers, and fruit has worked him up to 

 a state of enthusiasm, rushes home and writes to his 

 friend to tell him what he thinks about them. 



We do not feel in a position to dispute the theories 

 which he occasionally propounds, such as that the young 

 shoots on a hedge are kept in their place and supported by 

 cobwebs, that darkness is favourable to the growth of 

 plants and babies ; on all these matters he speaks with 

 more authority than we can pretend to. All we can ven- 

 ture to say is, that "si non e vero e ben trovato"; and 

 his theory of darkness seems to explain the unfolding of 

 a sycamore shoot, though he gives no instance of its 

 operation in the case of the young of the human species. 

 The contemplation of ail things in nature — birds, beasts, 

 and fishes, reptiles, insects, and molluscs, inflames Mr. 

 Leslie to a rapture of aflection ; and when the fit is on him, 

 he can find extenuation even for snails and sparrows, 

 whereby he soars into a lofty and rarified region of 



