28 Some New Natural History Books. 



that ' India is threatened with an irretrievable decrease in and deteriora- 

 tion of the most interesting members of its Fauna.' 



At the same price, Mr. John Murray has published Territory in 

 Bird Life, by H. Eliot Howard, a feature of which volume is the un- 

 usually artistic series of illustrations in photogravure by G. E. Lodge 

 and H. Gronvold. These are certainly some of the finest of their kind 

 that we have seen in a work of this character. Mr. Howard treats the 

 subject rather differently from the usual run of natural history books, as 

 will be gathered from the following headings of the chapters : — The 

 Disposition to Secure a Territory ; The Disposition to Defend a Territory ; 

 The Relation of Song to the Territory ; The Relation of the Territory to 

 the System of Reproduction ; The Warfare between Different Species and 

 its Relation to the Territory ; The Relation of the Territory to Migration. 



In its series of ' Life Stories of Famous Men,' Messrs. Watts & Co. 

 have published Thomas Henry Huxley, by his son, Dr. Leonard 

 Huxley (120 pp., 2/- net.) The volume is remarkably well written, and 

 gives a fascinating account of the work of one of our greatest naturalists, 

 and is illustrated by photographs. 



Messrs. Warne & Co. have issued the second volumeof T. A. Coward's 

 work on The Birds of the British Isles and their Eggs, which comprises 

 the families Analidae to Tetraonidae (376 pp., 12/6 net). There are no 

 fewer than 213 coloured illustrations by A. Thorburn and others, as well 

 as photographs by Kearton, and similar well-known Naturalists. The 

 volume is even better than the first one, which was noticed in these pages 

 a little while ago, and we can only add that for the money it is the very 

 best work we know dealing with this subject. 



A scientific work of welcome kind is The Sea Shore, one of the 

 S.P.C.K. ' Nature Lovers' Series,' written by W. P. Pycraft, of the 

 British Museum (156 pp., 4/6 net). Mr. Pycraft deals with the subject 

 in a way likely to interest the myriads of visitors to our watering places, 

 and gives illustrations of the more remarkable forms of marine life 

 likely to be met with, in addition to which he has remarks on the Past 

 History of our Islands, the effect of Coast Erosion, Sand Dunes, and so 

 on. The seven chapters are headed : The Gathering Together of the 

 Waters ; Concerning our Seas ; The White Cliffs of England ; The 

 Inhabitants of Cliffs, Caves and Rock-pools ; Pebbles and Sand-beaches ; 

 Where the River Weds the Sea, and Concerning Islands, ^^'e can recom- 

 mend tlie book as a pleasant means of passing away some of the otherwise 

 dull hours with which visitors to the seaside nowadays so frequently meet. 



Secrets of Earth and Sea, by Sir Ray Lankester (2.13 pp., Methuen 

 & Co., 8/6 net). This contains still further reprints of chapters written 

 by Sir Ray Lankester in The Field, the Illustrated London News and the 

 Daily Telegraph. The publishers claim that the author is second to none 

 as an enthralling writer on Science. The chapters are of a quite mis- 

 cellaneous character, and have the advantage of having been WTitten by 

 an expert who rarely finds pits and falls into them, though we don't 

 mean to suggest that he is infallable. Among the twenty-two chapters 

 in the present volume we have such subjects as The Earliest Picture in 

 the World ; Portraits of Mammoths, by men who saw them ; The Art 

 ■of Prehistoric Men ; Vesuvius in Eruption ; The Biggest Beast ; What 

 is meant by ' A Species ' ; Wheel Animalcules ; The Swastika ; Coal. 

 In justice to Prof. Lankester, we ought to say that he seems to make no 

 mention in his second chapter of an alleged carving of a mammoth found 

 by one of his disciples (or masters?) in F,ast Anglia. 



It will be remembered that I'rofessor Herdman, the President of the 

 British Association, made an urgent appeal in his address at Cardiff for 

 the thorough scientific investigation of the Seas surrounding Britain, and 

 all that in them is. Bearing upon this important question is The Sea 

 Fisheries, by Dr. J. T. Jenkins (London : Constable tS: Co., 300 pp., 

 24/- net). Next to the ' Challenger ' Reports, and the reports of smaller 



Naturalist 



