208 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[September 1, 1898. 



five hundred small pages seems an insult to onr fauna, 

 which, if not very large, has been very closely studied. In 

 our opinion anyone would be bound to fail in such an 

 attempt, and certainly Mr. Aflalo has failed. It is not our 

 intention to criticise each portion of the book. As a sample 

 of the whole, let us take the largest division — the birds, to 

 which two hundred pages are devoted. We have first to 

 complain that, notwithstanding his acknowledged want of 

 space, the author fills many valuable lines with assertions 

 such as the following ; — " The wood-wren used to nest in 

 great abundance near Doberan, Mecklenburg, in May, 

 1890." Of what interest is it to those for whom this book 

 is intended to know that the wood-wren nested near 

 Doberan ? Unless the book is intended to be nothing but 

 a mere list, we presume that it would have for one of its 

 chief objects the means of identifying species. The author's 

 aim in this direction has been to enable the observer to 

 recognize the live bird rather than the dead one. If it 

 were possible to give suflicient information to be of any 

 value for this purpose in a few words, the author's want of 

 care — or is it want of knowledge — would prevent him 

 from attaining his end. 'We are told, for instance, that 

 the tire- crest may be distinguished from the gold-crest by 

 the deeper orange of its crest. We venture to affirm that 

 no one could distinguish the two birds by this means. The 

 chief distinguishing feature of the fire-crest is that it has a 

 black line through the eye. Again; we have to distinguish 

 the turtle dove from other British doves merely by the 

 " somewhat larger tail, which is edged with white, and by 

 the black and white patches on the neck." From this we 

 have to conclude that the turtle dove is, in general colouring, 

 the same as the woodpigeon, stock dove, and rock dove. 

 Of the statements that the common tern has the bill and 

 tail orange -coloured, and that the Arctic tern is apparently 

 n:<iile)it on the east side of Scotland, we can make nothing. 

 The many instances of this sort of slip-shod description 

 render the book practically valueless for purposes of 

 identification, and there is so little space for anything but 

 the very briefest description of species that we cannot see 

 on what groimds any value can be claimed for the book. 



Birds in Limdim. By W. H. Hudson, f.z.s. (Long- 

 mans.) Illustrated. The birds of London have attracted 

 a considerable amount of attention during the last few 

 years, and Mr. Hudson's book is very opportune. The 

 author's first idea was to write a handbook, giving lists of 

 all the birds that are to be found in London, but this idea 

 was subsequently discarded, and wisely, for what are the 

 boundaries of London now, and who can tell what they 

 will be in a few years to come ? If we judge Mr. Hudson 

 rightly, his chief objects in writing this book have been, 

 first to show how badly wild birds are looked after in a 

 great number of the parks and open spaces, and secondly, 

 what a great delight and pleasure the birds are to the 

 Londoner. In describing the bird life in the parks and 

 open spaces, the author gives a great deal of sound advice 

 as to how these places could easily, and often with little 

 expense, be made enticing to birds, not only as visitors, 

 but as permanent residents. We agree with Mr. Hudson 

 in general on this point, but his arguments are sometimes 

 a little one-sided. The Londoner no doubt is very fond 

 of wild birds, and greatly enjoys seeing them in the parks, 

 but the author would apparently have all the rhododendrons 

 pulled up, and hollies and gorse planted in their stead, 

 and a portion of the money that is spent on the flowers 

 expended in providing for the accommodation of the birds. 

 From an ornithologist's point of view this is only right 

 and proper, but we should not care to say with the author, 

 that " a gorgeous bed of tulips that has cost a lot of 

 money is regarded by a majority of visitors with a very 



tepid feeling of admiration compared with that which they 

 experience at the sight or sound, whether musical or not, 

 of any wild bird." Mr. Hudson deals at length with "the 

 cat question. " It appears that cats, chiefly stray ones, 

 swarm into the parks at night, and do incalculable damage 

 to small birds, which roost in low bushes. On this 

 subject again the author gives some good advice, and it is 

 a subject into which he has evidently entered thoroughly. 

 There are a number of amusing anecdotes about birds 

 ill the book, but we think one or two of them which bear 

 the marks of imagination, or exaggeration, might have 

 been omitted. It is always a pleasure to read Mr. Hudson's 

 well-written books, and we feel sure that the present one 

 will be found interesting, as well as instructive, by 

 Londoners and those who take an interest in London birds. 



Das \V('Jt(i(iiaude : a Pojiulnr Triatise on the Hcairns. By 

 Dr. M. Wilhelm Meyer. (Leipzig and Vienna : BibUo- 

 graphical Institute. 1898.) The earth at present appears 

 to be passing through the nucleus of a swarm of text-books 

 of general astronomy. Now, a really magnificent specimen 

 has come to hand from Germany, and though it labours 

 under the disadvantage of being written in German, and 

 printed in black letter, even an Englishman can enjoy the 

 lucidness of Dr. Meyer's style, and the impartiality with 

 which he discusses the theories that are not yet proven. 



Assuredly the book is not of the dogmatic type. Dr. 

 Meyer has perfectly realized that it is not the function ot 

 a text-book to formulate an astronomical creed, or to say 

 the last word on any point of doubtful doctrine. He does 

 not say, for instance, " I believe that Venus rotates on her 

 axis in two hundred and twenty-five days, and I count all 

 who believe not, schismatics ' ; neither does he assert that 

 she rotates in some twenty-four hours. The same spirit of 

 reasonableness attends him when he treats of the lunar 

 surface, and leads him to supplement his actual description 

 of the objects, hy descriptions of terrestrial objects seen 

 under similar conditions, and which they resemble or from 

 which they difi'er. Thus, in the case of the lunar 

 Apennines, he gives, beside it, a bird's-eye view of the 

 Island of Corsica to emphasize the fact that moon 

 mountains as a rule consist of single peaks arranged in a 

 ring form, but that earth mountains are ranges which 

 radiate in roughly parallel directions. 



The arrangement of the matter is perhaps somewhat 

 unusual, but there is much to be said for it. In the 

 introduction there is a very full account of the optics of 

 the telescope, with which is incorporated a description of 

 some of the great telescopes of the world, others being 

 left until Part II. The introduction also includes a full 

 description of the photography and photometry of the 

 stars and heavenly bodies, and of their spectral analysis. 

 The rest of the book is divided into two parts, which 

 deal with the heavenly bodies. Ordinarily in text-books 

 these two sections are not distinct, but practically we 

 believe that Dr. Meyer's arrangement will be at once 

 more interesting and more intelligible to the general 

 reader. But it presents the historical anomaly of the 

 discussion of the results obtained from photographic and 

 spectroscopic observations of the sun and heavenly bodies 

 in the beginning of the first section, and the Ptolemaic 

 theory towards the end of the second ; the theories of 

 the Milky Way, of double stars, of comets' tails, and the 

 meteoritic hypothesis, some three hundred pages before the 

 discovery of the law of gravitation. 



But, even more than with the text, the reader is struck 

 with the illustrations. These may be divided into three 

 classes. There are those which are beautiful reproductions 

 of drawings or photographs of the planets, sunspots and rice 

 grains,corona,prominences, comets, stars, and nebula?, and of 



