7866 Notices of New Books. 



Darwinianism. He revives and establishes the torpidity theory of swal- 

 lows (chap. 5); defends the crested and wattled snake that crows like 

 a cock (chap. 6) ; and adduces incontrovertible evidence that vipers 

 swallow their little ones (chap. 7). Such a work may well be yclept 

 the ' Romance of Natural History.' It bears about the same relation 

 to the every-day natural history of our fields, as the Iliad of Homer to 

 the despatches of the Duke of Wellington. 



One result, however, is inevitable to those who read the * Romance :' 

 it is impossible to rise from the perusal without finding that the author 

 has supplied abundant food for thought. Nothing is more easy than 

 to avow a disbelief in whatever we cannot see, or feel, or do not possess; 

 but it is most illogical to found a disbelief on the absence of such 

 evidence. A parity of reasoning would rob us of history with its 

 multitude of facts, and especially of those natural phenomena which 

 have left no trace behind them, such, for instance, as comets, eclipses 

 and earthquakes long, long, past, and of which we can obtain no infor- 

 mation, except from the accounts written by actual eyewitnesses : in 

 all instances the character of such witnesses must be our main guide 

 in the reception or rejection of their evidence : thus if six men describe 

 a mermaid, six men describe a sea serpent, and six men a chariot 

 wheel they have dredged from the bottom of the Red Sea, we have 

 no right to reject the first and second events, and accept the third, on 

 the ground that it is rendered probable by a knowledge that Pharaoh 

 and his host were overwhelmed by the waters at the very spot where 

 the chariot wheel was found. The only question that need be answered 

 is this — Is the narrator worthy of credence ? And should the result be 

 aflBrmative I hesitate not to say that I would as readily believe in the 

 sea sei-pent as in the chariot wheel. Never will I admit the right of 

 the scientific to dictate to the unscientific what they shall see and 

 what they shall believe ; the measuring mind of the mere technical 

 naturalist, like the locomotive engine, must keep to the direct line of 

 rail, — it is upset by the slightest deviation to the right hand or the 

 left. Not so the observer of Nature out of doors ; to him the land, and 

 sea, and air, are welcome to reveal all their wonders ; he can gaze on 

 a sea serpent or a mermaid without exclaiming, "Avaunt ! stand aside 

 because you have no place in my museum." I do not claim unhesi- 

 tating belief for all that is marvellous, but I do ask the truthlover to 

 sift evidence for his own satisfaction : the very attribute of marvellous 

 is often conferred by ignorance alone. 



It cannot, however, escape the notice of the cautious that many of 

 the " marvellous " discoveries, especially in the instance of toads, are 



