;88 



NA TURE 



Feb. 24, 1887 



1/330 of a horse-power .' " Our author would surely liaxe 

 thought twice before writing "the distance from London 

 to York is 200 miles per hour.'" But this, to which ue 

 invite his careful attention, would have involved no 

 greater blunder. 



" If the bodies are elastic . . . , the whole of the ener^^y 

 of the striking body is expended in producing motion in 

 the body struck." After this it will not, perhaps, surprise 

 the reader to find that we are furnished with a calculation 

 of " the total lieat from absolute zero resident in exploded 

 powder, at an atmospheric temperature of 50°, or 510" 

 absolute." 



The work may be made, even as a whole, thoroughly 

 useful to those habituated to the persistent inaccuracies 

 of the " vernacular " : — but, to effect this, it must be 

 carefully purged of statements analogous to the three 

 last-made quotations. P. G. T. 



A FIELD NATURALIST IN EASTERN BENGAL 

 Letters 07t Sport in Eastern Betigal. By Frank B. 



Simson, Bengal Civil Service, retired. (London : 



R. H. Porter, 1886.) 



THIS book is essentially a record of sporting scenes, 

 and the author has ostensibly written it for the 

 purpose of giving instruction in the art of shooting 

 and hunting wild birds and beasts of various kinds, 

 from quail and snipe to tigers and rhinoceroses. . Yet 

 it contains so many good observations on the haunts 

 and habits of wild animals, and the author shows 

 himself so capable a field naturalist, that a reader who 

 looks for zoological information will probably be dis- 

 appointed at not finding more novelty. The scene of 

 .Mr. Simson's principal adventures, Eastern Bengal, a 

 \ast plain traversed by mighty rivers, a country of rice 

 fields and cane brakes, and great grass jungles, of 

 " bheels," or marshes, and " churs," or temporary islands 

 and sand-banks in rivers, has by no means been ren- 

 dered too familiar by description. Fertile and peaceable, 

 with never-failing rains and magnificent water comniuni- 

 cation, it furnishes few sensational paragraphs for news- 

 paper correspondents or other manufacturers of periodical 

 literature. The region is as little known to Anglo-Indians 

 m general as the Highlands of Central India, so vividly 

 described by Forsyth, or the wild Mysore country, of 

 which the elephants, tigers, and other wild beasts found 

 an historian in Sanderson. Why is it that the additions 

 to our zoological knowledge made by Mr. Simson are so 

 much less iinportant than those made by Sanderson and 

 Forsyth ? 



The explanation is probably twofold, if not threefold. 

 All the three writers named were enthusiastic sportsmen 

 and good observers, but Forsyth and Sanderson related 

 events of more recent date, the details of which were 

 naturally more vivid, whilst the present work is a series 

 of reminiscences, written out long after the incidents 

 described took place. The avocations of the different 

 writers, too, were very dissimilar. Those of the two 

 authors first named led them to pass weeks and months 

 amongst the haunts of wild animals, whilst Mr. Simson, 

 a Bengal civilian, could only spend an occasional holiday 

 at a distance froin his office, or avail hiinself of a few 

 hours at a time during the cold season's tour. Another 



reason, perhaps of even more importance, is the great 

 difference in the nature of the country, and the different 

 system of hunting rendered necessary. The great grasses 

 of the Gangetic plain, even when reduced to patches by 

 the fires of the spring, conceal the movements of their 

 inhabitants, from rhinoceroses and buflaloes downwards, 

 far more than do the jungles of Central and Southern 

 India, especially after their much less luxuriant grasses 

 have been burnt. The process of beating out a patch of 

 thick grass 10 to 20 feet high with a (line of elephants 

 differs widely in the opportunities afforded for observation, 

 from the tracking, chiefly on foot, of the animal sought 

 after, through the burnt glades of the Satpura hills or 

 the comparatively thin undergrowth of the Sahyadri 

 forests. 



It must not be supposed that Mr. Simson's work con- 

 tains no novel observations. A very large proportion of 

 our acquaintance with the habits of animals, especially of 

 the larger Mammalia, is due to sportsinen, but the value 

 of their observations varies. A few sportsmen are 

 deliberately untruthful, — these are easily detected ; but 

 many more are unqualified for accurate observation. 

 There is no better test of a writer's truthfulness and 

 capacity than his snake stories. In America it is 

 commonly said that there is no subject on which 

 ordinary mortals are so prone to what may euphe- 

 mistically be termed "romancing." Indian experience 

 corresponds to American, and whatever may be the de- 

 ficiencies of the Bengali peasant, no one ever credited 

 him with want of imaginative power. The F.uropeans in 

 India, as a rule, know nothing about snakes. In the 

 work under review, two of the best letters (the whole is 

 written in epistolary form) deal with snakes, and the 

 account of the poisonous species, all of which are cor- 

 rectly named and described, is excellent. To have 

 picked out the grains of truth, and disregarded the chaff, 

 shows judicial acumen worthy of one who has, in the 

 administration of the law, had much experience of con- 

 flicting evidence. One of the most interesting facts men- 

 tioned is the use made of cobra venom in poisoning 

 arrows used for the destruction of wild animals. 



Another interesting observation may be noted : the 

 shooting of a tiger " whose paunch was crammed full of 

 grasshoppers or locusts." Hitherto, although tigers were 

 not thought to be very particular, they were supposed to 

 draw a line at frogs, and were not suspected of con- 

 descending to devour insects. 



The plates are good on the whole, the elephants 

 excellent, and the lithograph entitled " A scrimmage 

 with a tiger," is one of the best representations of the 

 animals and men depicted to be found in any Indian 

 sporting work. But the pigs — with one exception, in 

 which the animal looks as if he had been shaved — are far 

 too shaggy, and resemble the European boar, Sus scrofa 

 rather than the Indian .S. cristatus. W. T. B. 



THE MEASURE OF THE METRE 

 La Mesure du Mitre. By W. de Fonvielle. (Paris : 

 Hachette, 1886.) 



MDE FONVIELLE'S little volume is truly national. 

 . From one end to the other it rings with applause 

 for those brave men of France who, in 1792 and the 



