BOOK NOTICES. 577 
BOOK NOTICES. 
Legends of Le Detroit: By Marie Caroline Watson Hamlin. i2mo., pp. 
317. Thorndike Nourse, Detroit, 1884. For sale by M. H. Dickinson. 
This book is made up of some thirty tales based upon old French customs 
and traditions handed down by the descendants of the pioneers of the City of the 
Straits, who originally brought them from their native land of Normandy. They 
are quaint and fantastic, and the writer has fairly entered into their spirit and 
given us an attractive and instructive book. A descendant herself from one of 
the old families, it was her good fortune to hear many of them from the lips of 
ancestors whose memories extended back into the previous century, and she has 
made it her laborious but loving task to gather together in lasting form, the legends 
they delivered to her. While doing this, however, she has verified the historical 
points by studies of the best authorities, such as Charlevoix, La Hontan, Lam- 
bert, Le Moyne, the Pontiac Manuscript, Morris' Diary, Cass', Trowbridge's and 
Roberts' Memoirs, etc. 
Among the legends we note particularly The Baptism of Lake Sainte Claire, 
The Bloody Run — a legend of Pontiac's siege, LeLoup Garou, The Feast of St. 
Jean, The Cursed Village, Captain Jean, The Eve of Epiphany. These, as well 
as all the others, in varying degrees, awaken interest and excite our sympathies, 
and the descendants of the old French settlers of this Missouri border will find 
among them many concordant tales that will arouse old memories and recall the 
stories told to them in their childhood. 
To these tales Mrs. Hamlin has appended Hon. James V. Campbell's " Le- 
gend of L' Anse Creuse," and a brief account of a number of the old families of 
Detroit. 
The work of printer and binder is well done, as also the illustrations, which 
are the work of Miss Isabella Stewart. 
The Wonders of Plant Life: By Sophie Bledsoe Herrick. i2mo. , pp. 248. 
Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1883. For sale by M. H. 
Dickinson ; $1.50. 
Several of the chapters in this little book were first published in Scrihner s 
Monthly, for instance, those upon The Beginnings of Life : Single-Celled Green 
Plants: Ferns: Physiology of Plants: The Microscope- among the Flowers, and 
Insectivorous Plants. Those on Fungi and Lichens, Mosses, Corn and Its Con- 
geners, and the Pitcher Plants are new. The whole, however, is more complete 
and the serial connection is more closely made out than before. 
The tribute paid to the Microscope in the first chapter, is so just and eloquent 
that we cannot omit it: "The line of telescopic discovery, sweeping off into 
