178 



NA TURE 



[June 20, 1901 



as it seems to ignorant human beings, in hundreds at one 

 small corner only of a roomy island in Scoulton Mere, and 

 Sheerwaters collect to breed in one only of the hundred 

 and fifty islands of the Scilly archipelago. Guillemots, 

 identified by peculiar egg markings, lay year after year, 

 as Yorkshire cliff climbers agree, "within half an inch" 

 of the same spot on the same narrow ledge. 



"Water ouzels," writes St. John (p. 55), "come to the 

 burns near the sea about the beginning of October. The 

 same stones are occupied year after year by these birds." 



In a Norfolk cover well known to the present writer, if 

 there was a woodcock in the neighbourhood one was 

 almost always to be found under one particular laurel 

 bush. 



Surroundings may completely change without breaking 

 the charm. Thickknees love open spaces, and as a rule 

 nest nowhere else. But Prof. Newton, in the article on 

 migration in his "Dictionary of Birds," tells of their 

 eggs laid in a thick Suftblk cover, in the precise spot 

 where years before, when the ground was still an un- 

 planted heath, birds of the species had been accustomed 

 to breed. 



The only thing to be objected to in an otherwise alto- 

 gether charming book is the paper on which it is printed, 

 which is abominable. 



The dazzling glaze which makes reading by candlelight 

 a pain instead of a pleasure is too high a price to pay 

 even for St. John's spirited and witty pen and ink 

 sketches. 



If the use of the highly pressed and metallically polished 

 papers which, since the invention of " process blocks," 

 have become fashionable in illustrated magazines is car- 

 ried much farther — the danger is very real and serious — 

 the eyes of the rising generation will fail them long before 

 their time. 



There is something pathetic in the thought of the 

 number of men, younger sons of country gentlemen and 

 sons of officers, clergymen and professional men, born 

 with the deepest-seated of aboriginal instincts — the love 

 of sport — ingrained in their natures and brought up 

 among birds' nests and sticklebacks, who find themselves, 

 during the best years of their life, cut off from all that is 

 most congenial to them and their manhood slipping from 

 them in the close atmosphere of towns. 



A writer who, like Charles St. John, can while them 

 away from cramping surroundings and keep alive for a 

 little longer the ever-receding dream of the good time to 

 come some day, is not a man who has lived in vain. 



T. DiGBY PiGOTT. 



EXERCISES IN HYGIENE. 

 The Science of Hygietic : a Text-book of Laboratory 



Practice. By Walter C. C. Pakes, D.Ph. (Camb.), 



F.C.S. Pp. XV -f 380. (London : Methuen and Co., 



I goo.) 

 " T T ITHERTO there has appeared no single text- 



-«- -»- book dealing with all the practical laboratory 

 work which is now required from the candidate for the 

 Diploma in Public Health." So the author writes in his 

 preface, and the work under review is the result of his 

 attempt to jremedy what he considers to be " a great 

 disadvantage." 



NO. 165 1, VOL. 64] 



When it is pointed out that in this manual some five 

 subjects are dealt with, each of which has furnished the 

 subject-matter of well-known text-books of similar bulk 

 to the present volume, it is evident that Mr. Pakes's 

 effort must partake somewhat of the nature of a cram 

 book. 



"The Science of Hygiene," we would point out, is far 

 too pretentious a title for a small manual which at the 

 most affords the student an incomplete digest of a very 

 extensive branch of study. The inadequacy of treat- 

 ment would be sufficiently apparent if the different kinds 

 of subject-matter were dealt with in good proportion,, 

 but this is not so, for we find the difficult subject of 

 vital statistics disposed of in nineteen pages, ten of 

 which are devoted to the construction of a life table, 

 with the result that no mention is made of one of the 

 most important matters dealt with in vital statistics, 

 namely, the rate of infantile mortality ; the subject of 

 physics is dismissed without any mention being made of 

 the siphon or of the common pump, the principles of 

 which should certainly be understood by the public health 

 student ; and the great and important matter of the 

 chemical examination of food is dealt with in twenty-eight 

 pages. On the other hand, the part of the work dealing 

 with microscopy covers eighty-nine pages and is by far 

 the most complete and best part of the book. 



The work is divided into five parts. Part i gives an 

 outline of bacteriology ; the brief directions here given 

 are generally sufficient if the worker has the advantage 

 of a teacher at hand when he attempts to put them into 

 practice, otherwise he will frequently find them in- 

 sufficient. Part 2 deals with microscopy ; the illustra- 

 tions are for the most part good, but the representations 

 of the starches are crude and unsatisfactory. No 

 drawing is given of Cyclops or of Gammarus Pulex, two 

 organisms of far more common occurrence than several 

 of those dealt with by the writer. 



In mounting the starches for microscopical examination 

 the student is told to use a " sterilised loop " to moisten 

 the starch with, and a further instance of carelessness is 

 the fact that pages illustrating water sediments are 

 headed " Internal Parasites." 



Part 3, which deals with chemistry, also contains 

 blemishes. With reference to the physical characters of 

 water it is said that " if there is any yellowish or 

 brownish colour there will be some suspicion of sewage 

 contamination, unless the water happens to have been 

 collected from a peaty soil." We should have been more 

 disposed to warn the student that it is very rare indeed 

 for sewage contamination, even when it is very consider- 

 able, to colour water ; iron, on the other hand, is one of 

 the more common causes of such coloration. 



In the estimation of chlorides the red precipitate of 

 chromate of silver is described as "brown." The method 

 described for the "estimation of calcium " will include 

 magnesium ; and the "estimation of magnesium," when 

 performed in accordance with the directions given, will 

 lead to a very serious under-estimation. 



Although the author does not offer " more than a few 

 hints to enable those who are not adepts to avoid the 

 many pitfalls which await them," his remarks upon the 

 interpretation of the results of the analyses of water are 

 faulty in places and would not be acceptable to those 



