512 



NA TURE 



[March 30, 1905 



are too numerous to be noticed individually here. 

 Shortly stated, the author has given the benefit of his 

 extensive knowledge and wide experience in the 

 planning, equipment, and arrangement of parks and 

 all their accessories. Every practical expedient that 

 ingenuity can suggest to encourage that open-air life 

 and physical exercise so necessary and beneficial for 

 young and old has been adopted in the schemes and 

 plans submitted by the author of the report. 



\ word or two about the nature palace may not be 

 put of place. This very important building has been 

 designed to serve .several different purposes, such as a 

 winter garden adapted to receptions and conver- 

 saziones, and it also could be used as a promenade 

 and popular assembly room, and as a centre for 

 bazaars, periodic industrial exhibitions, flower shows, 

 &c. The author further proposes to give this building 

 the additional and educational interest of a great 

 museum — a museum which, however, should not aim 

 at having a large general collection of geological, 

 botanical, zoological, and anthropological material, 

 such as those which already exist in larger cities. 

 Indeed, the author points out that it would be cheaper 

 for the trust to send whole schools to the museums of 

 Edinburgh than to attempt to possess an independent 

 institution containing, say, the sixth best collection 

 of skeletons in Scotland or the like. This museum 

 in the nature palace is to be something apart from 

 any existing type of museum; in the words of the 

 author, " A museum not primarily of geology, botany, 

 natural history, anthropology, and so on, yet the 

 whole of these within the living unity of nature, 

 scene by scene — in short, a museum of geography." 

 So far as the special requirements of the various 

 natural sciences are concerned, the author recommends 

 as a model the Perth Museum, with its well chosen 

 collection of tvpes. 



The latter half of the report, forming book ii., 

 deals with the culture uses of museums and institutes. 

 In this part of the volume, art, music, history, and 

 science are all provided for and suitably housed, with 

 a view not merely to their immediate wants, but 

 ample allowance and provision are made for the future 

 development and expansion of each and every phase 

 of human activity bearing on culture and industry. 



In this handsome volume, the author has included a 

 vast amount of detailed information and convincing 

 arguments to show the value of parks, gardens, 

 museums, and culture institutes in the social 

 advancement, education, and well-being of com- 

 munities. 



u 



NATURE'S WAYS.' 

 NLIKE the great majority of works of the same 

 class, this little volume takes no notice of birds, 

 but, as its title implies, is entirely devoted to the lower 

 forms of life which may be met with during rambles 

 in different parts of 'the country, including both 

 animals and plants.. As in the case of his earlier 

 book, all the articles have previously been published 

 in various periodicals and journals; and the oppor- 

 tunity for revision given by their re-publication ought 

 to have enabled the author to correct certain deficiencies 

 in style and expression by which the present issue is 

 disfigured. 



For example, on p. 2t), \fr. Ward manages to 

 introduce the word " which " three times in the course 

 of a single sentence without the use of any higher 

 stop than a comma. On p. 2 we find an obtrusive 

 instance of the ei^o el rex metis class; and on 

 [). 172 we are told that occasionally examples of a 



,,'. "'*"';5 inio N.iture's Way.s ; being Chapters on Insect, Pl.int, .ind 

 Minute Life By J. J. Ward. Pp. xviii + 30a ; illustrated, (r.omloi, : 

 IsbiiterandCo., iqos) 



NO. 1848, VOL. 71] 



ceftain organism are not uncommonly met with. 

 Again, on p. 204 the reader, owing to the misuse of 

 the pronoun " they," is informed that the jaws of a 

 snail possess neither jaws nor teeth ; while in the 



flower-stalk. From 



second paragraph on p. 91 we observe a plural 

 pronoun used in connection with a substantive in the 

 singular. The misprint in the first sentence on p. 181 

 is perhaps excusable; but the statement (p. 186) that 



Fig. 2.— a sprig of broom, showing fertilised and unfertilised flowers. 

 From " Vetps into Nature's Ways." 



carbon chemically combines with the water sucked up 

 by plants is scarcely an exact definition of what takes 

 place. 

 .Apart from blemishes like the above, the author may 



