120 
NAT ORE 
[ Fune 10, 1886 
These are, however, only the necessary key to what 
follows in the most interesting observations upon the first 
appearance of each familiar flower, the maiden song of 
each sweet warbler of the grove, the arrival of summer 
visitants, such as the swallow, swift, corn-crake, or cuckoo, 
and the emergence of insect, reptile, fish, or hibernating 
mammal from winter’s sleep. 
The student is provided with a series of 365 pages, 
fittingly and instructively introduced, one being devoted 
to every day in the year. Each page is numbered both 
prospectively and retrospectively, showing not only the 
number of days or pages from the beginning, but to the 
end. These pages are partly blank, and upon the left- 
hand side the reader is told what to look for in the vege- 
table or animal kingdom, what flower may be expected 
to raise its head, or, as the season advances, what fruit may 
be expected to ripen. We are almost all of us keenly 
alive to the interest of watching the unfolding season, 
and a book of this kind embodying information already 
obtained, and inviting the reader to record his own ob- 
servations on the same points, must commend itself to a 
large class of persons. Take as an example p. 133, or the 
133rd day of the year, May 13, and we find that we should 
on this day “look out” for the green hair-streaked butter- 
fly, the light tussock and rivulet moths, and the egg of 
the lesser whitethroat ; we may also look for the spindle- 
tree in flower and the common mallow, although some- 
what before their usual times. The blossom of the white- 
thorn, which is always known as “ May,” has been seen 
at Marlborough on April 30, and again has not been seen 
till June 4, information which is thus succinctly set forth, 
“ Crategus oxyacantha, 120-155, Hawthorn, Whitethorn, 
May,” the figures indicating the earliest and latest days 
of the year upon which this favourite flower has been 
known to bloom. 
There appears, indeed, to be no limit to the kind of 
things which an earnest student of Nature might not 
pleasantly note as affording material for his Maturalist’s 
Diary. And so wide is now the net thrown, and so extra- 
ordinary are the correlations of science, that no fact need 
be passed over as unworthy of notice. For example, we 
are told in the introduction that “closely connected with 
the subject of migration, and equally deserving of sys- 
tematic observation, is the congregation or flocking of 
birds in the autumn and winter months, as it is probably 
correlated with hibernation of fishes and reptiles.” So 
that watching the loves of doves, and packing of par- 
tridges, listening to the early soft cooings of pigeons, or 
the crow of the pheasant, chronicling the advent of the 
cuckoo, or of “‘sweet Philomel complaining,” or listening to 
the first strains of that “rapture so divine” which the 
immortal Shelley ascribed to our most sustained songster 
—in each case we may by accuracy of observation add a 
drop to the ocean of facts slowly developing into universal 
knowiedge. Such a task could not fail of being attractive. 
Possibly it may tend to dissipate the sweet and more 
dreamy influences which steal over us insensibly while 
experiencing the gradual unfolding of Nature—the feeling 
so tenderly expressed by Longfellow in his exquisite pre- 
lude to the “ Voices of the Night”; but this awakening 
from the poetic dream appears to be the fate of com- 
munities as well as of individuals, and we must, we sup- 
pose, resign ourselves to it. 
to ransack, to dissect, to arrange, to chronicle, and not to 
“babble o’ green fields” only, as Dame Quickly said of 
poor Sir John Falstaff lying a-dying. 
Downton, May 12 JOHN WRIGHTSON 
OUR BOOK SHELF 
Scientific Results of the Second Yarkand Mission, based 
upon the Collections and Notes of the late Dr. F. 
Stoliczka. “ Araneida.” By the Rev. O. P. Cambridge, 
M.A. (Published by order of the Government of India, 
Calcutta, 1885.) 
WE have already on several occasions noticed the 
memoirs published by the Government of India on the 
collections made during this expedition to Yarkand. The 
spiders were placed in the very capable hands of the Rev. 
O. P. Cambridge for description. The collection cannot be 
considered as fairly representing the fauna of the exten- 
sive region traversed during the expedition, an area which 
Mr. Hume thinks might be subdivided into five well- 
marked regions, but which the author, judging from the 
collection of Araneida, conceives might have been well 
considered as but two: that is, (1) from Murree to Cash- 
mere, including the latter as well as the former; and (2) 
the whole of the rest of the area travelled over by the 
Expedition, and comprising the neighbourhood of Leh, 
the route from Tantze to Chagra and Pankong Valley, 
and from Yarkand to Bursi, as well as Yarkand and 
neighbourhood, Kashghar, the hills west of Yarkand, and 
the Pamir. 
In the former of these more than half of the whole 
number of spiders were collected—69 out of 132. The 
leading character of these is European, with a few more 
distinctly tropical and sub-tropical species. The character 
of the latter region is also European, but with decided 
sub-Alpine features, and scarcely a trace of any even sub- 
tropical form; and of the 69 species met with in the 
former three only were found in the latter, and only one, 
Drassus dispulsus, occurred throughout. 
Of the 132 species, 23 seem identical with European 
species already described, leaving the large proportion of 
109 as apparently new to science. Even this number can- 
not be supposed to represent the new species in the fauna 
of this region. The season of the year was very much 
against the success of the collection, and the hands of the 
collector were very much engaged with other branches of 
natural history ; and there can be no doubt that a large 
harvest awaits the explorer of the southern slopes of the 
mountain regions of Cashmere, where the tropical cha- 
racter of the forms will become more marked; and 
probably a still greater diversity in the species will be 
found in those from the more central regions of India. 
For comparison upon these points the author regrets that 
there exist no materials, for almost nothing has as yet 
been published about the spiders of tropical India. 
Two quarto plates with 21 figures of the more important 
new species accompany this Report. 
LEDTLERS LO THE EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 
pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to 
return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manu- 
scripts. No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 
[The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 
as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 
that it ts impossible otherwise to insure the appearance even 
of communications containing interesting and novel facts.| 
The Thomson Effect 
I AM indebted to Dr. Everett for calling my attention to the 
confusion which has crept into § 193 of my book on ‘‘ Heat.” 
I had not noticed it; but, happily, it can easily be removed. 
It is the province of science | Take to the end of the section the statement quoted by Dr. 
