NATURE 



{jfan. 24, i< 



svipplies of food and covering to a sufficiently elevated 

 bivouac, and those presented by the mountain itself. 

 The former of course will be overcome as the country is 

 opened up, but it is evident that Mount Cook is equal in 

 difficulty to most of the first class Alpine peaks. Mr. 

 Green first attacked it by the southern ridge, but, after 

 reaching a height of 7500 feet, found that route im- 

 practicable. An attempt was then made to reach the 

 norlh-eastern face of the mountain by a route which also 

 had to be abandoned. Mr. Green then mounted by a 

 ridge on the left bank of the Hochstetter Glacier, and, 

 after bivouacking at a height of about 7000 feet, succeeded 

 in attaining the summit by a circuitous and difficult climb 

 near the ridge connecting Mount Cook with Mount 

 Tasman. His usual ill-fortune pursued him. The 

 weather was bad, as it seems often to be in these parts — 

 and the approach of night compelled him to return 

 without actually setting his foot on the very highest point. 

 The ascent however was practically accomplished, only 

 a slight detour to avoid a crevasse and a little more 

 plodding along a snow ridge remained ; but even the 

 quarter of an hour or twenty minutes which this would 

 have added to the expedition could not be spared. The 

 summit of Mount Cook is not the place on which to spend 

 a night in bad weather, nor is it a peak which can be 

 descended in the dark. As it was, notwithstanding their 

 utmost exertions, the travellers were compelled to halt for 

 the night at an elevation of some 10,000 feet above the 

 sea, on a ledge so dangerous that they dared not sleep 

 — even one at a time ! 



Mr. Green afterwards visited the neighbourhood of 

 Mount Earnslaw, a high peak south of Haast Pass, but 

 his usual ill-fortune pursued him, and the weather pre- 

 vented him from doing more than make a reconnaissance. 



We lay down this volume with regret that the Fates 

 were not kinder to Mr. Green in giving him the oppor- 

 tunity of writing a longer tale of adventure. He tells 

 his story so well and pleasantly that we regret he could 

 not carry further his explorations of New Zealand peaks 

 and glaci'ers. He is evidently a close observer and 

 devoted student of nature, so that without any attempt at 

 book-making he has contrived to incorporate with his 

 narrative many interesting facts relating to the natural 

 history and physiography of these remarkable islands, 

 which raises his work far above the level of an ordinary 

 book of travel. T. G. Bonney 



DOBS ON' S ''MONOGRAPH OF THE 

 INSECTIVORA " 

 A Monograplt of the Insectivora, Systematic and Ana- 

 tomical. By G. E. Dobson, M.A., F.R.S. Parts I. 

 and II. 4to. Pp. 1-172, 22 Plates. (London : Van 

 Voorst, 1882-83.) 



THE Insectivora constitute an order of Mammals at 

 the same time but little known and of great scien- 

 tific interest. Until recently they were not considered an 

 attractive group. Small in size, shy and retiring in 

 habits, difficult of capture, none of them of commercial 

 value or capable of domestication, they have received 

 little notice even from professed zoologists, and to the 

 general public their existence, except in the case of two 

 or three of the commonest species, has been almost un- 



known. The fact, however, on which Prof. Huxley 

 insisted many years ago, in his lectures at the College of 

 Surgeons, that in this order we find some of the most 

 generalised members of the Eutherian or placental 

 Mammals, little-modifi;d representatives of what appear 

 to be ancestral forms, whose study is an excellent intro- 

 duction to a knowledge of the more modified or specialised 

 members of the class, has done much to elevate them in 

 the eyes of naturalists who are seeking the key to unlock 

 the history of the evolution of the Mammalia. Mr 

 Dobson, whose excellent work in the Chiroptera is familiar 

 to all zoologists, has done well then to take up the Insect- 

 ivora, and to give us, for the first time, a thoroughly 

 reliable and exhaustive monograph upon them. 



Aided by wisely-bestowed grants from the Government 

 Fund administered by a committee of the Royal Society, 

 and with the assistance of numerous scientific friends, he 

 has been enabled to collect abundant materials, and 

 publish the results of his investigations in a copiously 

 illustrated form. To facilitate comparison and avoid 

 repetition, Mr. Dobson commences with a detailed account 

 of the anatomy, paying especial attention to the myology, 

 of two species, Gymniira rafflesidcnA Erinaceus europatis, 

 which have been selected, the former as the nearest 

 representative of an undifferentiated Eutherian, and the 

 latter as being a well-known species, easily obtainable for 

 examination. With these the anatomy of the species 

 subsequently described is compared and contrasted. 

 With regard to the general classification of the group, a 

 knowledge of which can of course only be obtained from 

 a thorough examination of their structure, Mr. Dobson 

 has wisely reserved his views until the work is completed, 

 adopting provisionally that which has been gradually 

 elaborated by Peters, Mivart, and Gill. 



The two first parts of the work already issued contain 

 the families Erinaceider, Centetidcs, Solenodontida, Pota- 

 mogalida, ChrysO(.h!oridce, and Talpida, each family, 

 genus, and species being treated of fully, both anatomic- 

 ally and zoologically. The difficult group Soricidcz, as 

 well as the Macroscelida, Tupaiidce, and the aberrant 

 Galeopithecida-, will form the subject of the third and 

 concluding part. If this part should be, as we have every 

 reason to believe it will, equal to its predecessors in 

 thoroughness of detail and beauty of illustration, we shall 

 have a work which will do great credit to its author, and 

 rank among those solid contributions to knowledge which 

 form landmarks in the progress of science. 



W. H. Flower 



OUR BOOK SHELF 



Manual of Mathematical Tables. By the Rev. J. A. 

 Galbraith and the Rev. S. Haughton, F.R.S. (Lon- 

 don : Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.) 

 " Now what so pleasing can there be, if a man be mathe- 

 matically given, as to calculate or peruse Napier's 

 logarithms, or those tables of artificial sines and tangents, 

 not long since set out by mine old collegiate, good friend, 

 and late fellow- student of Christchurch in Oxford, Mr. 

 Edmund Gunter, which will perform that by addition and 

 subtraction only which heretofore Regiomontanus's tables 

 did by multiplication and division?" We shall not take 

 up the cudgels against quaint old Burton, but will simply 

 say that, for those to whom the subject is a "pleasing" 

 one, here is an exceedingly handy and neatly got up 



