BOOK REVIEWS 
In this section are reviews of new, or particularly important and interesting books 
in the fields of natural science. Books dealing with botany or kindred subjects should 
be sent to the Editor, the University of Notre Dame. All other books for review 
should be sent to Carroll Lane Fenton, at the Walker Museum, the University of Chi- 
cago, Ill. Publishers are requested to furnish prices with books. 
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THE WONDERS OF NATURAL -HisTory. By A. F. and V. D. Collins. F. A. 
Stokes, 1920. $2.50. 
I sent for this book with high hopes; I thought that we might at last 
have a natural history that would combine the interest of the well- 
known: but obsolete Woods with the discoveries and accuracies of mo- 
dern zoology. But my hopes were unfounded; there is neither interest 
nor any great amount of accuracy. In fact, about the only worth while 
about the volume is a series of plates taken from photographs made 
at the American Museum of Natural History. It’s a pity, too, for the 
printing and binding of the book are excellent. 
The authors attempt to give a review of archeology, ethnology, zo- 
ology, minerology, paleontology, and museology, all in a volume of 204 
pages, and they attempt the impossible. The chapter on ancient man is 
tolerably good, but after it the book goes completely to pieces. It is little 
more than a hit-and-miss collection of technical terms and names poorly 
and incompletely defined, and hysterically emphasized by italics. There is 
an evident intention to be both popular in material and interesting in 
style, but the intention is lost in the maze of definitions. The book is 
a strange hybrid between a child’s Natural History and Parker and 
Haswell’s “Zoology,” with the bad features of both and the good fea- 
tures of neither. 
espe) a 1 
SECRETS OF EARTH AND SBA. By E. Ray Lankester. Macmillan, 1920. 
Dr. Lankester possesses a vagabond interest that makes his books 
always new and interesting. In “Secrets of Earth and Sea,” for 
example, he goes from the cave-man of ice-covered Europe to the erup- 
tions of Mount Vesuvius; from an article on the ‘world’s biggest animal 
to a discussion of what is meant by a species. The color of water, the 
cross-breeding of animals, the nature and mining of coal, and the lives 
of the little “Wheel Animals” of our fresh-water ponds all claim his 
attention. And about all of them he has something to say that is in- 
teresting to read, and worth knowing. 
The book is something of ‘a sequel to the earlier volumes “Science 
from an Easy Chair” and “Diversions of a Naturalist.” The essay- 
