a) 
NATORE 
[June 4, 1914 
‘corners. As is always the way when a writer has 
a good story to tell and knows how to tell it, the 
book convinces and interests us, and we ask for 
more. Mrs. Pocock tells us about animals she 
has watched with an attentive and sympathetic 
eye, and her range is no restricted one—from 
orang-utans to millipedes, from the elephant to 
the elephant-shrew—and she throws in quaint 
items of information which will be fresh to many. 
If anyone wishes to know how apes received Prof. 
Boys’s soap-bubbles, or what the mynah says to 
‘old gentlemen who peer into his cage, or how the 
ostrich woos his mate, or how the Old World por- 
cupines advertise their presence, or of the vagaries 
of a snail that was wont at times to get out of 
its shell, let him read Mrs. Pocock’s delightful 
book. She has been fortunate in securing un- 
surpassable photographs which adorn her tale, 
and one is here reproduced by the courtesy of the 
publishers. 
(3) The story of the moose by Agnes Herbert is 
an effective biography, worked out with careful 
and convincing realism and not too obtrusively 
anthropomorphic. From the start when we read 
of the calf’s enormous ears that “turned this way 
and that, one after the other, almost automatically, 
listening, listening. . . . (‘it was as if the great 
flaps were so pleased with an hitherto unknown 
accomplishment that they could not but practise 
iter els. . to the end when we see the lynx 
sitting ‘‘in the lustrous, first light of day washing 
his glossy coat”. . . . (“and as the big bull stood 
up stiffly, the cat leered over his shoulder and then 
went on licking fur”). . . . we have to do with 
scientific and artistic workmanship. There are 
eight excellent full-page illustrations by Patten 
Wilson. 
(4) We have already expressed our apprecia- 
tion of the Bodley Head Natural History, the 
second volume of which—on British Passeres— 
is now in our hands. Mr. Shepherd’s clever 
drawings give us delightful glimpses of the be- 
haviour. and character of the birds, and Mr. 
Cuming’s text is clear and interesting. We like 
some of his touches :—‘“the grasshopper warbler 
remains in. the mind as a veritable mouse in 
feathers’; ‘the song, so-called, low and not un- 
musical, gives the impression that the dipper is 
singing to himself”; “your abiding impression of 
the tree-creeper is one of vanishing round the 
corner.”. The two little volumes we have seen are 
delightful, but we do not understand the dragging 
in of rarities like the subalpine warbler, Pallas’s 
willow warbler, the greenish willow warbler, or 
even the wall creeper. What is the use of it in 
books. of this kind? 
(s) In the “Once upon a Time,” Lilian Gask 
has been very successful in making a learned pro- 
fessor tell an active-minded boy about extinct 
animals and primitive man. The stories of “the 
ancient lords of land and sea,” of man’s life in 
the trees, of the finding of fire, of ancient hunters, 
and the like are told with accuracy, simplicity, and 
vividness. .We have tried the book on a boy of 
twelve who thoroughly approved of it. The iflus- 
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trations by Patten Wilson are full of interest and 
vitality. The preface stands badly in need of 
revision. ses . 
(6) The gorgeous work entitled “The Moths of 
the Limberlost”’ tells of studies made around a 
now dwindled swamp in north-eastern Indiana. 
The most living moths we ever saw fly about the 
pages, and the photographs are only surpassed 
by the water-colour drawings. The work must 
rank very high among beautiful ‘‘ Nature-books,” 
and there is good material in it too in the way of 
careful observation by a _ well-trained eye. It 
seems to us, however, that the text has been far 
too much diluted with talky stuff that is often 
utterly unimportant. There is also a regrettable 
and discordant ‘“‘chathng” of technical books and 
the mistakes they sometimes make. But the 
author is a true nature-lover who knows _ her 
moths and can depict them with unusual skill. 
(7) In his “Game Book” Mr. Allen R. Haig 
Brown confesses that the love of the chase is 
worth more than all civilisation can offer and pro- 
tests against the sentimentalism that credits 
animals with much in the way of pain or fear. 
He gives us an analysis of his grand total of 5,510 
head in ten years, and tells us that he kills because 
he likes to, and because he wishes to keep the 
last remnants of nature from finding their way 
into “the maw of civilisation.” He writes in a 
pleasant, straightforward way of ferreting and 
pike-fishing, of dogs and hares, of grouse and the 
“Trossacks,”’ of fish that should be dead becoming 
lively again, and of other strange occurrences. 
There are numerous, pretty illustrations through- 
out the volume, but the insertion of the verses 
shows a surprising lack of humour. The book is 
a naive expression of ‘‘the exquisite pleasure that 
there is to be gathered from the birds and beasts 
of the chase in the pleasant places of our own 
dear land.” 
THE ROGER BACON COMMEMORATION 
AT OXFORD. 
ee arrangements for the commemoration of 
the seven hundredth ‘anniversary of the birth 
of Roger Bacon are now well advanced. The day 
appointed for the ceremony is Wednesday, June 
10; the place, as is fitting, being Oxford. Pro- 
ceedings will begin at noon with the unveiling, by 
Sir Archibald Geikie, of Mr. Hope-Pinker’s statue 
of the great Franciscan, and its reception by Earl 
Curzon on behalf of the University. Addresses 
will be presented by delegates representing 
various bodies who have joined the movement, 
and the public orator, Mr. A. D. Godley, will 
deliver a Latin oration. All this will take place 
at the university museum. The delegates and 
some other visitors will be entertained at lunch 
by the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, 
and doubtless other lunch parties will be arranged. 
At three o’clock all visitors will have the oppor- 
tunity of attending the Romanes lecture. This 
will be given in the Sheldonian Theatre, the lec- 
turer being Sir J. J. Thomson, of Cambridge, and 
ct 
