May 4, 1899} 
Many of the names mentioned in connection with the 
history of thermodynamics are quite unknown to me; I 
nowhere find any mention of the names of Lord Kelvin 
or of his brother the late Prof. James Thomson, who 
first demonstrated the connection between pressure, tem- 
perature and change of specific volume on change of 
state. Rankine’s name is not mentioned either, although 
to the English engineer this seems like leaving out the 
name of Columbus in a history of the discovery of 
America. 
In the section referring to “diagrams of CO, marking 
the critical point,” of course the name of Dr. Andrews 
is not mentioned, but those of Regnault and Zeuner, 
Cailletet and Mathias are. Of course, A is used instead 
of J for Joule’s equivalent throughout this book. 
The translator says that Prof. Unwin has read over 
the proofs. I wonder whether he looked over the trans- 
fator’s preface, in which he states, among other curious 
things, that “ entropy in its strict sense has no meaning 
if employed to represent the changes of state of a fluid 
flowing through a vessel, and more or less throttled in 
its passage.” If he means that a foolish man may make 
mistakes in using a 7p diagram, heis right enough. But 
if he means that a certain quantity of stuff in a certain 
state has not just as definite a quantity of entropy as it 
has of pressure or temperature, he makes a mistake 
which is by no means an unusual one. 
Perhaps, on the whole, it is well not to extend to the 
translator much of the credit which one may give to the 
author of the book. The author may never have heard 
of Rankine or the Thomsons or Andrews or Maxwell, 
but itis really unpardonable that in the translator’s list 
of the works dealing with “ the subject of entropy” there 
should be no reference to anything written by Rankine. 
JOHN PERRY. 
UNSCIENTIFIC NOTES. 
Hlaunts and Hobbies of an Indian Official. By Mark 
Thornhill, author of “Adventures of a Magistrate in 
the Indian Mutiny.” Pp. xii + 346. (London: John 
Murray, 1899.) 
HIS is a collection of notes on various subjects jotted 
down by an Indian civilian, who, during part of 
his Indian career, kept a diary which was, he says, 
“chiefly devoted to observations on the birds, insects 
and animals whose acquaintance I made in my garden, 
or which I beheld on the bed of the river beyond.” 
Like many writers in the earlier half of the passing 
century, Mr. Thornhill uses the word animals in the 
restricted meaning of mammals. Occasional notes on 
the weather, on some of the natives of India, and on 
their habits, institutions and _ superstitions, and an 
account of a tour in the Deyra Dun at the base of the 
Himalaya, are added, and make a thoroughly readable 
and even an interesting book, though not one to which 
those desirous of information as to the “ birds, insects 
and animals” of Northern India can be recommended to 
turn. The best portions of the work are those descriptive 
of the people of India and of the scenery ; the changes 
of the seasons, and their effects, especially on insect-life, 
are also well described, but similar accounts have been 
NO. 1540, VOL. 60] 
NATURE 5 
given by other writers. The observations recorded 
were evidently made in parts of the North-western 
Provinces of India. 
It is chiefly as a contribution to the zoology of Northern 
India that Mr. Thornhill’s book demands notice here ; 
and in this respect it would be difficult to find a more 
unscientific work. For science is essentially the accumu- 
lated experience of many men, and they who trust entirely 
to their own observations and neglect to make themselves 
acquainted with facts recorded by others, must not be 
surprised if the majority of their accounts are superfluous, 
and some of them erroneous. In the present work we 
have description after description of certain habits of the 
animal world well known to every Anglo-Indian, and use- 
less to those unacquainted with India, because the author 
is unable to identify the animals observed. For instance, 
on p. 192 he describes in considerable detail a remark- 
able bird’s nest. But although he must have devoted 
time and labour to obtaining and describing the nest, it 
does not appear to have occurred to him to inquire what 
bird. built it, or whether any other observer had investi- 
gated this interesting form of bird-architecture. Yet 
from the description of the nest, and from the manner in 
which the structure was suspended from high grass, it is 
easy to recognise the nest of a weaver bird, and even to 
identify the species as probably the striated weaver bird 
Ploceus manyar. Any one who compares Mr. Thornhill’s 
notes with those in Jerdon’s ‘“‘ Birds of India,” or better 
still with the elaborate account given in Hume’s “ Nests 
and Eggs of Indian Birds,” must appreciate how useless 
the first-named are. 
In the case just quoted, Mr. Thornhill, though his 
observations add nothing to what was well known before, 
does not mislead ; so another instance may be taken, 
when his information is not only imperfect but incorrect. 
The following are extracts from his account (p. 118) of 
the animal well known in India under the name of the 
“ musk-rat.” 
“This rat, fortunately, does not make its residence in 
the houses, and indeed it only occasionally enters them, 
and then as a rule bynight. I do not know whether after 
all it is a true rat. In appearance it more resembles 
a very small, nearly hairless, ferret. It is of a drab 
colour, and has that half-transparent look noticeable in 
young mice and unfledged chickens. Its presence is 
manifested by a squeaking cry, accompanied by an 
intolerably sickly odour, something resembling musk. 
The odour is so penetrating that, according to the 
European popular belief, it will pass through the glass of 
a bottle and flavour the liquor within. The fact is 
correct, but not the explanation. Beer and wine are cer- 
tainly occasionally flavoured by these rats running among 
the bottles that contain them, but the odour penetrates 
not through the bottle, but through the cork.” 
The so-called musk-rat of India is, of course, a large 
shrew, and resembles a ferret about as much or as little 
as the common English shrew does. It varies in colour, 
but is generally slatey-grey to bluish-grey. If it does 
not spend the day actually in houses, it haunts their 
immediate neighbourhood, merely hiding in holes. Its 
presence is not necessarily manifested by any odour, as 
Sterndale has shown. Lastly, the absurd old story that 
liquors in bottles become impregnated with the peculiar 
odour of the secretion from the lateral glands of the 
-musk shrew, whether the scent was supposed to pass 
