Reviews



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is clue the fact that quite a number of brilliant ornithologists were

produced from Cambridge during that period. It is very fitting that

one of these pupils of his should have been chosen to write the story

of his life, which has just been published. There has been a good deal

of delay in producing the volume, for Newton died in 1907, but

Dr. Wollaston, himself an eminent naturalist, has during the interval

been engaged for a period of years in exploration work in New Guinea

and elsewhere, not to mention the further delay caused by the great

upheaval of the war, in which his services were required in other

directions. But now that the book has appeared, it is well worth the

waiting for, and ornithologists in common with others will find very

much of interest in its pages.


Newton made it his habit to keep practically every letter he received,

and apparently many of his correspondents kept the letters they received

from him, so that his biographer has been able to publish a large

number of the most important out of some thousands of these letters,

and these, give perhaps a better insight into his life and character than

could otherwise have been obtained. Every chapter is of absorbing-

interest, whether it relates to the Great Auk and his visit to its former

breeding places, to Darwinism, or the founding of the B.O.U. and the

Ibis in Newton’s rooms at Cambridge. In every chapter we obtain

an insight into the character of one who was of the best type of English

gentleman of the mid-Victorian period, a man of the most upright

principles, of strong opinions, and a staunch conservative who hated

what he regarded as new-fangled ideas, such as the creation of sub¬

species and the employment of trinomials in nomenclature, though,

surely, had he lived long enough, he would have come to recognize

the necessity of these. In spite of his dislike of new ideas, he was one of

the first to recognize and approve of the views of Darwin.


Professor Newton was an Honorary Member of the Aviculturai

Society, and the present writer cherishes a letter written by him in

reply to an invitation to become an honorary member. It is in the

Professor's usual courteous style, and expresses appreciation of the

work achieved by the Society and what he describes as the honour

it was proposed to confer upon him.



D. S.-S.



