NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 
The Naturalist in Siluria. By Captain Mayne Rem, Author of 
‘The Scalp Hunters,’ ‘The Death Shot,’ &. Post 8vo, 
pp. 240. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1889. 
On glancing at the title of this volume and its contents, two 
things, in the absence of any explanation from the publishers, 
strike us as somewhat remarkable: first, that a collection of 
serious essays on Natural History should emanate from a writer 
whose name has been known to us since our school-boy days as 
the author of sensational novels, and, secondly, that he should be 
writing on Natural History topics in 1889, when we happen to 
know that he died in October, 1888. Some additional words seem 
wanting on the title-page, such, for instance, as ‘‘ Posthumous 
Essays, by the late” or (if it be the fact) some indication that 
this is not the first edition which has appeared. The unwary 
reader is allowed to suppose that this is a new book, or finds 
himself, as we do, ina dilemma. Nota word of explanation is 
given in the “ Introduction,” and “‘ Preface” there is none. And 
yet, taken seriously, the book is worth notice, not on account of 
its tasteful “get up,” or illustrations, many of which are execrable 
as engravings, and erroneous in their teaching, but because it 
bears on many pages the stamp of out-door observation by a 
resident in an English rural district. which is described and 
named. 
«My residence,” says the author, ‘‘is in Siluria, contiguous to that 
singular and symmetrical ‘valley of elevation’ known as Woolhope. 
From the summit of a high wooded hill, Penyard, which rises abruptly 
in rear of my house, I can look over the whole series of Upper Silurian 
rocks, from the northern edge of their upcast at Mordiford, near the 
city of Hereford, to their southern projection by Gorstley, in Gloucester- 
shire. There they dip under the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone, 
again to show upon the surface a little further south, in the smooth 
rounded dome of May Hill, standing solitary with its crest of Scotch 
firs conspicuous from afar. .... Westward, and in fact all round me, 
extends the Old Red Sandstone, the characteristic rock of Herefordshire, 
as also the adjacent county of Monmouth.... . Near by, on the west, 
