Dec. 9, 1880J 



NATURE 



\2: 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 Life and Her Children : Glimpses of Animal Lije from 



the Amaim to the Insects. By Arabella B. Buckley. 



(London : Kdward Stanford, 1880.) 

 After light came life, and with that life there came its 

 two great functions— growth and development.- With the 

 simplest as with the most complex forms there is the 

 same eager race to be run, to increase in size, to multiply, 

 and thus replenishing this earth, to die. " Life and 

 Her Children " is a praiseworthy and admirable attempt 

 to tell us something of the Children that Life sends forth, 

 and of their history. Its main object is to acquaint young 

 people with the structure and habits of the lower forms of 

 life; but in our deliberate judgment it will do a great deal 

 more. None will read its introductory chapter without 

 advantage, and few will read the volume through without 

 enjoyment. Within its narrow limits of 300 small pages 

 no candid reader would expect to find all the details that 

 might be wished for, or all the illustrations that might be 

 desired. What constitutes the book's chief charm is the 

 marvellously simple yet quite scientific style which runs 

 through it, the food for thought and future study which it 

 affords, and the truly philosophic glow which lights up its 

 every page. The volume gives a general account of Life's 

 .Simplest Children, the Protozoa. The word " slime " 

 does not seem to us quite a happy term by which to 

 designate the living protoplasm of these creatures ; this 

 word conveys the idea of a something adhesive or glu- 

 tinous, or of a something thrown off a living organism — 

 a something without a structure (sordies, eluvies) — and 

 there seems somewhat of a "contempt for nature," a 

 thought certainly never present in the author's mind, in 

 the use of such a word. Jelly would seem a more 

 appropriate w'ord, as conveying the idea of the con- 

 sistency requisite for life, and would have the sanction of 

 use. Thus the Noctiluca?, called in this volume "tiny 

 bags of slime," were described, if we mistake not, by 

 their discoverer as "tiny spherical gelatinous bodies," 

 and Prof. Huxley says, " Noctiluca may be described as 

 'a gelatinous transparent body about the one-sixtieth of 

 an inch in diameter.' " 



The chapter on "How Star-fish Walk and Sea-Urchins 

 Grow " is excellent. The story of how the five curious 

 little oval jelly bodies swimming about by their jelly lashes 

 in the depths of the smooth water in some English bay — 

 ended in becoming respectively a lily star, a brittle star, 

 a starfish, a sea-urchin, and a sea-cucumber, is well told, 

 and woodcuts, though they make one see as in a glass 

 darkly, help in their own way to make the meaning plain. 

 In the "Outcasts of Animal Life" a difficult problem is 

 treated of. It need not surprise one that it is not solved. 

 The last four chapters tell of " the Snare- Weavers and their 

 Hunting Relations (spiders)" ; the Insects which change 

 their coats but not their bodies, and those which remodel 

 their bodies within cover of their coats ; " the Intelligent 

 Insects with Helpless Children, as illustrated by the Ants." 

 This volume thus tells of the greater part of the living 

 invertebrate animals as they are spread over the earth to 

 fight the battle of life. " Though in many places the 

 battle is fierce and each one must fight remorselessly for 

 himself and his little ones, yet the struggle consists 

 chiefly in all the members of the various brigades doing 

 their work in life to the best of their power, so that all 

 while they live may lead a healthy, active existence. 

 The little bird is fighting his battle when he builds 

 his nest and seeks food for his mate and his little ones; 

 and though in doing this he must kill the worm, and may 

 perhaps by and by fall a victim himself to the hungry 

 hawk, yet the worm heeds nothing of its danger till its 

 life comes to an end ; and the bird trills his merry song 

 after his breakfast, and enjoys his life without thinking 

 of perils to come. So Life sends her Children forth ; 

 and it remains for us to learn something of their history. 



If we could but know it all, and the thousands of different 

 ways in which the beings around us struggle and live, we 

 should be overwhelmed with wonder. Even as it is, we 

 may perhaps hope to gain such a glimpse of the labours 

 of this great multitude as may lead us to wish to fight 

 our own battle bravely and to work and strive and bear 

 patiently, if only that we may be worthy to stand at the 

 head of the vast family of Life's Children." 



The work forms a charming introduction to the study 

 of zoology — the science of living things — which we trust 

 will find its way into many hands. E. P. W. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[ 77/1? Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondtnts. Neither can he undertake to return, or 

 to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. No 

 notice is taken of anonymous communications. 'X 

 The Editor tirgently requests correspondents to keep their letters as 

 short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great that it 

 u impossible otherwise to ensure the appearance even of com- 

 munications containing intereslins; and novel facts. 'X 



Prof. Tail and Mr. H. Spencer 



As Mr. Spencer has already got the length of calling some of 

 my statements " fictions, pure and absolute," it is time that this 

 discussion should cease. But it is necessary that I should at 

 least show my reasons for having made the statements in question. 

 They will be found ample. 



Mr. Spencer's pamphlet, which originated this discussion, and 

 in which I am tlic first subject brought up for vivisection, bears 

 on the tille-page that it deals ttith Criticisms. 



The only passages of mine which Mr. Spencer quotes, which 

 can possibly have the slightest reference to himself, and which 

 can in any way be construed into criticisms, are but two in 

 number. In these, or in one of them, the cause of his attack oa 

 me must be sought. 



The first is mainly a verbal transcription from Mr. Kirkman, 

 and as such it is none of mine ; but in introducing it I inadver- 

 tently (though correctly) spoke of the " Formula of Evolution" 

 as a definilion. 



The second is a passage yi-u/w a different part of my article on 

 Sir E. Beckett's book, and its application is to materialists and 

 agnostics in general. 



This latter passage did not appear to me capable of having 

 roused th; vivisection- instincts of so calm a philosopher as Mr. 

 Spencer, especially as it was not applied to any one in particular. 

 Of course, then, I at once assumed that the former passage 

 contained the offence whi;h was to be expiated ; and I was 

 confirmed in this idea by the M'ay in which Mr. Spencer put his 

 /i);7«///(r alongside of the Law of Gravitation. I could not have 

 ventured to suppose tliat Mr. Spencer "did not r.'cn ino-M that 

 he was in the habit of saying formula rather than definition." 

 This naive confession cannot but be correct. Had it been 

 made in Mr. Spencer's pamphlet, I should not have thought it 

 necessary to say a word. It ctplains at once his frequent entire 

 misapprehensions of my meaning. So I give up my plausible 

 theory of the origin of Mr. Spencer's attack en me ; and shall, 

 henceforth, ascribe that attack to ray having made a singularly 

 apt and telling quotation from Sliakespeare 1 



With regard to the other parts of tlie discussion, I feel that I 

 need not add anything to what I have already said; except on 

 one point, an important one. 



Mr. Spencer has employed an old remark of Prof. Huxley as 

 to what mathematics can, and cannot, do ; but he has not 

 employed it happily, for the question at issue is really this : — Is 

 it correct to speak, at one time, of force as an agent which 

 changes a body's state of rest or of motion, and again to speak 

 of it as the time-rate at which momentum changes or as the 

 space-rate at which energy is transformed ? 



I answer that there is not the slightest inconvenience here ; 

 except, perhaps, in the eyes of those metaphysicians (if there be 

 any) who fancy they know what force is. Such phrases as " the 

 wind blows," or "the sun rises," though used by the most 

 accurate even of scientific writers, would otherwise (on account 

 of their anthropomorphism) have to be regarded as absolute 

 nonsense. P- G. Tait 



