554 



NA TURE 



{_April 15, I ; 



birds are said to have been sold some years ago in the 

 course of an afternoon, and the number of West Indian 

 and Brazilian birds sold by one auction-room in London 

 during the four months ending April 18S5, was 404,464, 

 besides 356,389 Indian birds, without counting thousands 

 of Impeyan pheasants, birds of paradise, &c. In Mr. 

 Dutcher's article on the " Destruction of Birds for Mil- 

 linery Purposes," he quotes from an article in Forest and 

 Stream, wherein one dealer, during a three months' trip 

 to South Carolina, prepared no less than 11,000 skins. 

 " A considerable number of the birds were, of course, too 

 much mutilated for preparation, so that the total number 

 of the slain would be much greater than the number 

 given. The person referred to states that he handles, on 

 an average, 30,000 skins per annum, of which the greater 

 part are cut up for millinery purposes." During four 

 months 70,000 birds were supplied to New York dealers 

 from a single village on Long Island, and an enterprising 

 woman from New York contracted with a Paris millinery 

 firm to deliver during this summer 40,000 or more skins 

 of birds at 40 cents apiece. From Cape Cod, one of the 

 haunts of the terns and gulls, 40,000 of the former birds 

 were killed in a single season, so that " at points where, 

 a few years since, these beautiful birds filled the air with 

 their graceful forms and snowy plumage, only a few pairs 

 now remain." The above extracts out of many interest- 

 ing facts which could bs quoted from the articles in 

 Science, give some idea of the slaughter which is going 

 on at the present time, and it is to be hoped that some 

 immediate steps may be taken to call public attention to this 

 wholesale bird-murder, before the nesting season begins, 

 when most of the mischief is done among the sea-birds, 

 which congregate in large numbers at that time of 

 year. 



Space does not permit us to traverse the whole of the 

 ground taken up by our contemporary, whose articles 

 occupy fifteen pages, but we trust that they will be 

 perused by our readers for themselves. Mr. Sennett's 

 essay on the " Destruction of the Eggs of Birds for 

 Food " proves the wanton waste which accompanies the 

 ways of the professional " egger," to say nothing of 

 the cruelty which accompanies the taking of the eggs. 

 The " Relation of Birds to Agriculture " is a well-written 

 article, as is also an essay on " Bird-Laws," the latter 

 containing resolutions which, if adopted by the Legis- 

 lature, would undoubtedly prove of great service in pro- 

 tecting bird-life on both sides of the water, but no legisla- 

 tion will avail unless the women of America and Europe 

 can be made to understand that they are absolutely 

 responsible for the wholesale destruction of birds which 

 is now going on, to the great benefit of the plume trade 

 and the milliners, but to the everlasting detriment of the 

 world on which we live. We should like to see some 

 authorised body, such as the British Ornithologists' 

 Union, the Selborne Society, or a Committee of the 

 British Association, taking this matter in hand and or- 

 ganising public meetings to bring the true facts of bird- 

 slaughter before the public ; and we have every faith in 

 the good sense of English women to secure a stoppage 

 of the trade which exists by their patronage alone, and 

 which is thoroughly antagonistic to the instincts of 

 humanity. 



R. BOWDLER SHARPE 



MR. GEIKIE'S "CLASS-BOOK OF GEOLOGY" 

 Class-Dflok of Geology. By Archibald Geikie, LL.D., 

 F.R..S. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886.) 



"/"'EOLOGY is essentially a science of observation. 

 V J The facts with which it deals should, as far as 

 possible, be verified by our own personal examination. 

 We should lose no opportunity of seeing with our own 

 eyes the actual progress of the changes which it investi- 

 gates, and the proofs which it adduces of similar changes 

 in the far past. To do this will lead us to fields and hills, 

 to the banks of rivers and lakes, and to the shores of the 

 sea. We can hardly take any country walk, indeed, in 

 which with duly observant eye we may not detect either 

 some geological operation in actual progress, or the evi- 

 dence of one which has now been completed. Having 

 learnt what to look for and how to interpret it when seen, 

 we are as it were gifted with a new sense. Every land- 

 scape comes to possess a fresh interest and charm, for we 

 carry about with us everywhere an added power of enjoy- 

 ment, whether the scenery has been long familiar or 

 presents itself for the first time. I would therefore seek 

 at the outset to impress upon those who propose to read 

 the following pages, that one of the main objects with 

 which this book is written is to foster a habit of observa- 

 tion, and to serve as a guide to what they are themselves 

 to look for, rather than merely to relate what has been 

 seen and determined by others." 



In these words, which form the concluding paragraph 

 of the introduction to Mr. Geikie's " Class-Book on 

 Geology," we have the key-note to the whole work, and 

 the promise which they contain is amply redeemed in the 

 pages which follow. Our author has wandered over 

 many lands ; he has always carried with him eyes to see, 

 and the habit of using them which he strives so earnestly 

 and so successfully, in this his latest book as in those 

 which have preceded it, to develop in his readers ; and 

 out of the stores of his ripe and varied experience he 

 brings, to throw light on his subject, a wealth of illustration 

 which excites the envy, while it commands the admira- 

 tion, of those who have not enjoyed all the opportunities 

 for varied observation which have fallen to his lot. But 

 even if passing feelings of envy will obtrude themselves 

 as one happy illustration after another, new from this 

 quarter and new from that, finds a fitting place in the 

 narrative, they soon give way to the pleasanter feeling of 

 satisfaction that these opportunities have been placed 

 within the reach of one who knows so well how to use 

 them ; not for the advancement of his own knowledge 

 merely, but whose chief pleasure is to distribute with 

 open hand his treasures to all who care to share them, 

 who has the seeing eye to note, the ready pencil to 

 depict, and the facile pen to paint in words all those 

 manifold workings of nature by the study of which geology 

 was snatched from the shadowy realms of guess-work, 

 and based on a firm scientific foundation. 



At the very outset geology is looked at in its proper 

 light, not as an amusement for the collector and a 

 means of learning where he will get pretty and curious 

 objects for his cabinet, not as a field where the ingenuity 

 or perversity of the classifying mind may delight itself 

 with grouping natural products as reason or fancy 

 prompts, not in any other of these limited aspects, 



