May 22, 1913] 



NATURE 



work. Thanks to the publicity which was given by 

 Nature to the needs of these young men, I was able 

 to place a certain number of them in good commer- 

 cial laboratories, and it is satisfactory to know that in 

 nearly al! cases they have justified my opinion of them 

 and are doing well. More than thirty have been 

 placed during the past three years, and are under my 

 supervision still. 



The council has recently referred to me a large 

 number of these lads who are shortly leaving its 

 service, and I should be glad to be permitted to make 

 this fact known among readers of Nature, as I am 

 confident that should any employers desire promising 

 assistants for their laboratories they would be able 

 to obtain satisfactory applicants through this source. 

 Applications should be made to the hon. secretary, 

 Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Association, 

 61 Denison House, 296 Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W. 

 G. E. Reiss, 



May 14. Hon. Secretary. 



The Use of Spectacles with Optical Instruments. 



With reference to the inquiry in Nature of May 1 

 (p. 215), the general rule in cases where a person 

 using spectacles wishes to use an optical instrument 

 is, that for telescopes and instruments used for distant 

 objects, use the distance correction ; for microscopes 

 and instruments for near work, the near correction 

 should be worn. Care should always be taken to use 

 the centre of the spectacle lens. If no astigmatism is 

 present there is generally sufficient focussing room to 

 enable the observer to dispense with the spectacles. 

 The most comfortable method is to have a cap made 

 for the eyepiece of the instrument with a lens equiva- 

 lent to that in the spectacle. This should be set as 

 close to the eye-lens as possible, and in cases of 

 astigmatism they should be marked so that the axis 

 may be correctlv set. Any good optician will do this 

 at small expense. Herbert S. Ryland. 



Alwyne Square, Canonbury Park, N., May 14. 



NATURAL HISTORY AND SPORT. 1 

 (1) TT is now six years since the publication of 



J- Captain Shelley's great monograph of the 

 birds of Africa was suspended by the illness that 

 overtook and ultimately proved fatal to the author. 

 Fears, however, that the work might remain un- 

 finished were happily allayed by the announcement 

 that Mr. W. L. Sclater had undertaken to carry 

 it on to completion. Several years elapsed before 

 the final arrangement could be made, and it was 

 not until 1912 that Mr. Sclater was able to bring 

 out the volume under notice, which deals with the 

 Lanii or drongos and shrikes, and is the second 

 part of the fifth volume. This part is in every 

 way up to the standard of its predecessor, and 

 shows that Captain Shelley could not have com- 

 mitted the task to more competent hands than 

 those of Mr. Sclater, who has a genius for sys- 



1 (i> "The Birds of Africa." Comprising all the Species which occur in 

 the Ethiopian Region. By P. E. Shelley. Vol. v., part it, completed and 

 edited by W. L. Sclater. Pp. viii-f- 165-502. (London: H. Sotheran and 

 Co., 1012.) Price lit. 6,/ net. 



(2) "The Snakes of South Africa " Their Venom and the Treatment of 

 Snake Bite. By F. W. Fitzsimons. New edition. Pp. xvi f 547. (Cape 

 Town and Pretoria: T. Maskew Miller ; London: Longmans, Green and 

 Co , 1912.) Price 12J. id. 



(3) "The Adventues of an Elephant Hunter." By J. Sutherland. 

 Pp. xix+324. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 7s. 6rf. 



(4) " Baby Birds at Home." By R. Kearton. Pp. xv + 128. (London: 

 Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 6s. 



NO. 2273, VOL. 91] 



tematic ornithology. The book would certainly 

 have been improved and its cost not greatly in- 

 creased by the addition of a few outline figures in 

 the text to illustrate some of the structural char- 

 acters of the birds; but the eight coloured plates 

 drawn by that competent draughtsman and greatly 

 improved bird-artist Mr. A. Gronvold are excel- 

 lent. Apart from the systematic descriptions and 

 the useful analytical identification keys, a full 

 account of the known distribution of every species 

 is given, and its habits, where observed, have 

 been duly recorded. 



(2) As director of the museum at Port Elizabeth, 

 Mr. F. W. Fitzsimons has had exceptional oppor- 

 tunities of studying the snakes of South Africa, 

 and his volume is the outcome of observations, 

 extending over many years, upon these reptiles 

 both in their native haunts and in captivity; and, 

 thanks to his freedom from the restrictions im- 

 posed in some other countries, he has been able to 

 make a long series of experiments upon the venom 

 of the poisonous species. These experiments have 

 shown, amongst other things, that none of the 

 snake-killing mammals and birds of South Africa, 

 like the mongooses, zorillas, hedgehogs, and secre- 

 tary birds, is immune against snake venom, as has 

 been stated and is often believed, but that one and 

 all owe their ability to escape from and overcome 

 even such redoubtable antagonists as the puff- 

 adder and yellow cobra either to their extreme 

 quickness in warding off or avoiding the stroke 

 or to their protective armature. The experiments 

 have also convinced Mr. Fitzsimons that the anti- 

 venene recommended by Dr. Martin and Major 

 Lamb "by no means possesses the high standard 

 of venom-killing power some people claim for it." 

 These are only samples of the interesting matter 

 contained in the volume, which is a medlev of 

 varied information, anecdotes relating to habits 

 and field experiences being sandwiched between 

 technical diagnoses of genera and species, often 

 taken verbatim from the British Museum cata- 

 logue, the whole subject-matter being presented 

 in such a manner as to make a volume both useful 

 to the specialist and readable to the ordinary lay- 

 man. 



(3) The tale of Mr. Sutherland's ten years' 

 adventures as an elephant-hunter in Portuguese 

 and German East Africa is told with a simple 

 charm and ease of style which give his volume a 

 foremost place amongst books of African sport ; 

 and the interest of his experiences, some of them 

 unique and most of them exciting, is heightened 

 by the knowledge that he met them single-handed, 

 with only one or two trusted natives to act as 

 trackers and carriers. So vividlv are the scenes 

 depicted that on regretfully turning the last page 

 one cannot but echo the sentiment of the author 

 when he writes : "After so many years of a wild, 

 free life, I find it difficult to accommodate myself 

 to the stuffiness and constraint of a modern city ; 

 I prefer the forest to the imprisonment of streets, 

 the twinkling stars to lamps, the sigh of the primi- 

 tive forest to the tramp of thousands of human 

 feet." 



