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NEW NATURAL HISTORY BOOKS. 



At this time of the year there is usually a good crop of books dealing 

 with the various and numerous branches of natural science ; and it is 

 refreshing to find that each year sees a great improvement in the books 

 as a whole, and individually they are of a higher standard of excellence. 

 The publishers, for the most part, have found out that a few photographs 

 of cuckoos and cuckoo-flowers, tacked together by talky-talky nonsense, 

 do not constitute books that will sell. With being so frequently ' sold ' in 

 this way they have become careful. The books before us are all of the 

 kind that one reads and then puts on the shelves for future reference. 



The first among them is on Reptiles, Amphibia, Fishes, and 

 Lower Chordata, by R. Lydekker, J. T. Cunningham, G. A. Boulenger 

 and J. Arthur Thompson. (Methuen & Co., 510 pp., 10/6 net). It 

 is a companion volume to Pycraft's ' History of Birds,' issued by 

 the same firm some little time ago, and is in every way as excellent. The 

 names of the authors alone are a guarantee of the scientific value of the 

 contributions. The chapters are also all written from the point of view 

 of evolution, and we feel that Mr. Pycraft is not at all exceeding the true 

 estimate of their worth when he opines that they will be a landmark in 

 the annals of zoological literature. We do not remember the ground 

 being so thoroughly and so conscientiously covered previously." The 

 very existence of the primitive animals described by Prof. Thomson is 

 unsuspected by most of us. The student of sociology will find in his 

 chapters, no less than in those concerning more familiar creatures, much 

 food for reflection bearing on the subjects of adaptation to environment, 

 degeneration, and so on. To those who .seek to discover the subtle and 

 mysterious factors which govern the transformation of animals, will find 

 much food for thought in Mr. Lydekker's account of the reptiles, and 

 in the chapters on the nursing habits of amphibia and fishes by Mr. G. A. 

 Boulenger and Mr. J. T. Cunningham ; and to these we would add the 

 weird and fascinating chapter on the fish-life of the abysses of the ocean, 

 a world wherein the light of day never penetrates, and where the pall of 

 night is broken only by the pale phosphoresence emitted by the creatures 

 doomed to dwell there. The illustrations are all that can be desired, some 

 being coloured. 



A Catalogue of the Vertebrate Fauna of Dumfriesshire has been prepared 

 by Mr. Hugh S. Gladstone, and 250 copies only have been printed, and 

 are for sale by Messrs. Maxwell cS: Son, of Dumfries. (80 pp., and map). 

 In addition to an admirable introduction, the volume contains par- 

 ticulars of the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and marine and 

 freshwater fish. The book is bound so as to match ' The Birds of Dum- 

 friesshire ' by the same author. 



A subject usually neglected by ornithologists has been dealt with by 

 Mr. F. W. Headley, in his volume on The Flight of Birds. (Witherby & Co., 

 5/- net, 163 pp.). Those who are familiar with the leading zoological 

 journals will have seen Mr. Headlej^'s interesting contributions from time 

 to time. In the present volume the substance of them all is included, in 

 addition to which there is much new matter. There are nine chapters in 

 the book, dealing with Gliding, Stability, Motive Power, Starting, Steer- 

 ing, Alighting, Machinery of Flight, Varieties of Flight, Pace and Last, 

 Wind and Flight, and Some Accessories. Throughout the work the author 

 compares the birds with aeroplanes ; and in many ways, other than 

 that of natural history, will the book be found to be useful. 



Lectures in Biology, by Dr. Curt Thesing, translated by W. R. 

 Boelter. (London : Bale, Son & Danielsson, 334 pp., price 10/6). 

 This volume contains a series of lectures delivered at the Humboldt 

 Academy and the Urania in Berlin. They are entitled, ' From Thales to 



Naturalist, 



