126 



NA TURK 



December 12, 1901 



Strange Adz'cniures in Dicky-Bird Land. By R. 

 Kearton, F.Z.S. Pp. xiii + 195. Illustrated with 

 photographs direct from Nature by Cherry Kearton. 

 (London : Cas<;ell and Co., Ltd.) Price y. bd. 

 " Ui^ly" a Hospital I Jog. With Recitations and Read- 

 ings. By G. H. R. Dabbs, M.D. Pp. viii + 200. 

 (London : C. W. Deacon and Co., 1901.) \s. 

 Wondtrs in Monsterland. By E. U. Cuming. With 

 illustrations by J. A. Shepherd. Pp. xii + 258. 

 (London : George Allen, 1901.) 

 The C/iilds Pictorial Natural History. Part L Pictured 

 by C. M. Park. Pp. 24. (London: Society for Pro- 

 moting Christian Knowledge, 1901.) \s. 

 Thi'. four books of which the titles are given above have 

 been published at a time when people are finding suitable 

 gift-books for Christmas presents to children who have 

 an interest in natural history. 



Mr. Kearton's volume is an attempt to express incidents 

 in the lives of birds in an autobiographical form. The 

 style of composition is inelegant in places, and it requires 

 a good imagination to think of birds using such col- 

 loquialisms as ; "It strikes me very forcibly we are in for 

 more hard times," "Good old Bunny," "Guess what got 

 her, and beware my up-to-date young friend," " Go for 

 him, Mr. Missel Thrush." But perhaps this free and 

 familiar form of expression will be appreciated by 

 juvenile readers, who will certainly admire the excellent 

 illustrations. 



The first part of Dr. Dabbs's book is also in the auto- 

 biographical form, the narrator being a bull-dog who 

 attaches himself to a hospital, and renders assistance to 

 various members of the staff at different times. The 

 second part of the book contains recitations and readings 

 for odd hours. 



"Wonders in Monsterland" is a nonsense-book in 

 which the subjects are some extinct animals, disguised 

 under such names as the Master Don, Dino Therium, 

 Phee and Oh-don't-'op Teryx, Icky Ornis, Mackie Rodus 

 and Ann Thropithecus. The narrative is very funny in 

 places, and young people cannot fail to find enjoyment 

 in reading it. The book could appropriately be described 

 as a comic history of extinct monsters. 



Popular characteristics of twelve wild animals of other 

 countries, such as the tiger, elephant, wolf and giraffe, are 

 described and illustrated in Mr. Park's book, with 

 occasional Biblical references. A child might profitably 

 read the book in connection with a visit to the Zoological 

 Gardens. 



Whafs What. A Guide for to-day to Life as it is and 

 Things as they arc. By Harry Quilter, M.A. Pp. xii 

 -(-1 182. (London : Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1902.) 

 Price bs. net. 



There is an astonishing amount of information upon a 

 variety of subjects in this book. The volume is, in fact, 

 a kind of "Enquire Within for Everything," but with 

 this difference— matters of fact are, perhaps, less frequent 

 than matters of opinion. The introduction of this 

 personal element imparts a lightness to the contents not 

 usually possessed by books of reference, but after a while 

 the reader comes to the conclusion that the editor might 

 usefully have abridged his views and those of his con- 

 tributors in order to increase the number of subjects 

 described. 



At present the book cannot be depended upon as a 

 volume of reference ; that is to say, words or terms which 

 we expect to find in it are absent as often as not. 

 Something is said about chemistry — not very instructive, 

 it must be confessed — but nothing about physics ; light 

 occurs, but not the spectroscope ; conservation of energy, 

 but not conservation of matter ; the moon, but not the 

 sun ; botany, but not zoology ; the Hessian fly, but not 

 the gipsy moth or Colorado beetle ; hypnotism, but not 

 NO. 1676, VOL. 65] 



hygiene ; hydraulics, but not pneumatics ; pathology, 

 but not histology ; geography, but not geology ; equator, 

 but not ecliptic ; epilepsy, but not paralysis ; and these 

 are but a few examples of the inconsistencies of the 

 book. In general, the information gi\en is correct, but 

 the following remarks upon the celestial ecjuator form 

 one of the exceptions to this statement : — "This does 

 not always remain fixed, never passing exactly the same 

 stars, but turning in 26,000 years a little nearer to the 

 axis of the ecliptic. This causes the precession of the 

 equinoxes, each of which occurs 20 minutes earlier in 

 point of time than the last." K reader would be justified 

 in speaking disrespectfully of the equator after trying to 

 understand an explanation of this kind. 



The Self-Educator in Botany. By R. S. Wishart, M.A. 

 Pp. xiv -1-226. (London : Hodder and Stoughton, 

 1900.) Price IS. (id. 



This book is ostensibly written to enable students to 

 obtain a knowledge of botany without receiving personal 

 supervision and instruction. Thus the author sets before 

 himself an onerous task the difficulties of which he has 

 quite failed to realise. Indeed, the book displays through- 

 out the crudest knowledge of the subject, and this is set 

 forth in a loose and disjointed fashion v,'ithout any par- 

 ticular arrangement or continuity of argument. Even 

 where a good exercise is given, or an instructive experi- 

 ment described, as at p. 92, the full value is lost through 

 inadequate explanation or incomplete description. The 

 aim of the writer to provide practical scientific knowledge 

 in a logical manner has certamly not been attained ; 

 rather it is to be feared that the student who should work 

 through the book will even then find that he does not 

 know much, and most assuredly he will not know 

 accurately. 



Bastarde zwischcn Maisrassen tnii besondere Beriicksichti- 

 gung der Xenien. By Prof. C. Correns. Bibliotheca 

 I5otanica. Pp. 53. (Stuttgart; E. Niigele, 1901.) 

 Xeni.\ is the name given to the results of the crossing 

 of the plant by a foreign pollen, exhibited in some 

 peculiarity which appears in the seed itself, and does not 

 — as would be the case in a hybrid— remain in abeyance 

 until the plant which the seed produces has grown up. 



Thus if a certain race of maize which produces yellow- 

 skinned grains is crossed with pollen from a race which 

 has violet-skinned grains, it is found that the resulting 

 seed in many cases will be violet. It has also been 

 discovered that this is because the potency of the pollen 

 of the violet-skinned race makes itself effective, by means 

 of one of the pollen nuclei, on the endosperm, and the 

 latter acquires a violet outer layer in place of its accus- 

 tomed yellowish one. In other cases of xenia other 

 characters of the pollen-yielding parent make them- 

 selves effective on the embryo-sac —e.g. sugary in place 

 of starchy cell-contents. 



In the paper under review Prof. Correns has under- 

 taken — and, be it remarked, has very successfully carried 

 out — a large number of experiments on hybrids and 

 xenia of maize, the results of which are set forth in great 

 detail and illustrated by two plates of brilliantly coloured 

 figures. 



A Country Reader for Use in Village Schools. By 

 H. B. iM. Buchanan, B.A. Pp. vii-i-248. (London: 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd.. 1901.) Price \s. 6d. 

 Co.M.Md.v domestic and wild animals are described in 

 this book in a simple and instructive style, capable of 

 being understood by the elder children in village schools, 

 and by adults who are only familiar with words of every- 

 day life in the country. The book will impart to those 

 who read it an intelligent knowledge of animal life in 

 and around a farm. The illustrations, mostly reproduced 

 from photographs, are very fine. 



