850 
humble logician to point out various flaws in 
the argument. 
I believe the Egyptologists do not accept the 
Zodiac of Denderah and the inferences of Biot 
as unreservedly as Professor Lockyer. The 
ethnologists will, I understand, raise many ob- 
jections to Professor Lockyer’s hypothesis of 2 
change of race and religion. Mythologists will 
surely rebel against his treatment and interpre- 
tation ofmyths. Astronomers will point out how 
many stars there are and how few temples, so that 
it may not be so very difficult, given several 
hundred years of leeway, to choose a star 
to fit a temple. Plain people will ask how it is 
that a temple is, so tosay, dedicated to one star 
and oriented by another. Sirius was the star 
related to Isis, Mut and Hathor. But the tem- 
ples of these deities are not invariably oriented 
by Sirius. Gamma Draconis is a rather faint 
star. Why were not brighter ones selected ? 
After raising these objections and a crowd of 
others that might be brought forward, it re- 
mains that Professor Lockyer’s book is a con- 
tribution of high value and merit. A question of 
importance has been plainly put. The method 
of solving it has been described in popular Jan- 
guage. The data now available has been 
brought to the notice of everyone. If Profes- 
sor Lockyer has done little more than this, and 
if his principal conclusions still call for further 
confirmation, he deserves the thanks of all con- 
cerned in these questions—and who is not ? 
EpwArp S. HOLpEN. 
Song Birds and Water Fowl. 
HURST. 
By H. EB. PARK- 
New York, Scribners. October, 
1897. Illustrated by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. 
12mo, pp. 286. Price, $1.50. 
If there is any truth in the law of supply and 
demand, the present flood of popular bird 
literature must be taken as evidence of an ex- 
traordinary if not unprecedented interest in the 
subject of birds and nature. It is a healthful 
interest and one which awakens and develops 
some of the better elements in our natures 
which are apt to lie dormant. 
Mr. Parkhurst’s ‘Song Birds and Water 
Fowl’ is not intended as an aid to the identifi- 
cation of specimens, but belongs rather to the 
class of popular nature studies. A fair idea of 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. VI. No. 153. 
the contents may be had from the chapter 
headings, which are as follows: A Boquet of 
Song Birds; Water Fowl; A Bird’s-Eye View ; 
Mistress Cuckoo ; Sea Swallows; Bird’s Nests ; 
At the Water’s Edge ; Lake George ; A Colony 
of Herons ; Earliest Signs of Spring. 
The book is illustrated by eighteen admirable 
full-page drawings by Fuertes. 
Ob Jel, iL, 
Birderaft, a Field Book of Two Hundred Song, 
Game, and Water Birds. By MABEL OsGoop 
Wricut. New York, The Macmillan Co. 
November, 1897. With 80 full-page plates 
by Louis Agassiz Fuertes. 8mo, pp. 317. 
Price, $2.50. 
The second edition of Mrs. Wright’s ‘ Bird- 
eraft’ is a pleasant surprise. The cheap 
chromos of the first edition are replaced by a 
colored frontispiece and eighty full-page half- 
tone plates from original drawings by Fuertes, 
the powerful young bird artist who has so sud- 
denly sprung into fame. Most of these draw- 
ings have recently appeared in ‘Citizen Bird,’ 
by the same author and Dr. Elliott Coues 
(noticed in ScreENcE of November 5, 1897, p. 
706). 
Since the text of the second edition of ‘ Bird- 
craft’ is printed in the main from the same 
electrotype plates as the first, it is only neces- 
sary to refer to the review of the former 
(SCIENCE, June 7, 1895, p. 635), with the addi- 
tional statement that the principal errors there 
mentioned have been corrected. The book in 
its present form is attractive, interesting and 
helpful and should be in the library of every 
lover of birds. 
C. H. M. 
Magic Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, In- 
cluding Trick Photography. Compiled and 
edited by ALBERT A. HOPKINS, with an in- 
troduction by HENRY RIDGELY EyAns. New 
York, Munn & Co. 1897. With four hundred 
illustrations. Large 8vo. Pp. 556. Price, 
$2.50. 
The associations of the term magic are hardly 
suggestive of scientific processes or principles; 
they are more apt to call up an atmosphere of 
mystery and secret knowledge, a world of the 
