SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



15 



SCIENCE AT THE FREE LIBRARIES. 



PRESUMABLY the first intention in establish- 

 ing free libraries is to provide material for 

 educational purposes, and we are told that recrea- 

 tive reading is thrown in, as it were, for a bait to 

 induce readers to take up more serious subjects as 

 the process of education proceeds. We should 

 therefore expect that such money as remains, after 

 the supply of light literature is effected, would be 

 expended upon the acquisition of the most modern 

 literature which could be obtained. A recent tour 

 through the metropolitan libraries, and those in 

 some of the larger midland counties' towns, has 

 been surprising in its results. Science is certainly 

 fairly represented by regular stock books in most 

 of them. These largely consist of such illustrated, or 

 shall we say "picture," books as Lowe's " Beautiful 

 Leaved Plants " ; the Rev. F. O. Morris's works ; 

 Sir William Jardine's numerous volumes in his 

 "Naturalists' Library"; Buffon's works, and a 

 long series of books chiefly out of date. From 

 an educational point of view the majority of such 

 books tend to delay rather than advancement in 

 the onward march. In too many cases the income 

 of the library goes in the purchase of fiction or 

 general expenses, and the librarian depends upon 

 donations for the science section of his catalogue 

 and must accept whatever comes to hand. We 

 can readily understand the result by remembering 

 a cynical definition of Charity as " the giving that 

 which is no longer a necessity." 



It is only reasonable that having pointed out 

 these defects I should be expected to suggest some 

 list of, say the best hundred books on scientific 

 subjects, or to invite opinions. I have no list to 

 produce, neither am I going to ask for one from 

 our readers. There is, however, a way of obtaining 

 such a list, which would be of the utmost value to 

 the libraries, and the public consequently. No 

 librarian, nor even his masters, the Library Com- 

 missioners, can be expected to know every best book, 

 especially in science, where such voluminously new 

 and original works are being so rapidly produced. 



If some authoritative body, such as the Education 

 Department of the Imperial Government, or failing 

 that, the Library Association, were to invite the 

 councils of various learned societies, like the Royal, 

 Linnean, Zoological, Geological, Geographical, 

 Botanical, Chemical, Anthropological and Meteoro- 

 logical, to draw up a list of works dealing with their 

 especial subjects, we should then get at such a list of 

 text-books and authorities as would be satisfactory. 

 Then the money could be well spent as it be- 

 came available. This list might be revised from 

 time to time, as changes became necessary through 

 the progress of research. Can this suggestion be 

 taken up ? It only requires the powerful aid of the 

 press generally to alter this worse than useless 

 expenditure of money upon the dish of Science 

 served up in most of our free libraries. 



John T. Carrington. 



HTI1E Dispersal of Shells. By HARRY Wallis 

 Kew, F.Z.S.) London: Kegan Paul, Trenchi 



Triibner & Co., Ltd., 1893.) 305 pp. 8vo, Illus- 

 trated. Price 5s. 



This work is the latest of the " International 

 Scientific Series," and it has seldom been our lot, 

 after critically reading a book for review, to close 

 it with greater satisfaction. In a preface con- 

 tributed to this work Mr. Alfred R. Wallace says : 



" I am especially interested in Mr. Kew's attempt 

 to bring together all that is known of the means of 

 dispersal of the groups as to which such inform- 

 ation is most needed. He has devoted to the task 

 much labour and research, and has brought 

 together a mass of information of great value." 



This is high praise from such a leader in Natural 

 Science as Mr. Wallace, but it is none too great. 

 Without encumbering his pages with useless 

 speculation, the author has gathered together a 

 most useful mass of facts that form one of those 

 interesting stories which we too seldom find 

 associated with books of scientific value. As re- 

 presented in our reproduction of fig. 3 on page 

 64, there appears a certain measure of seeming 

 humour in the stately and business-like looking 

 beetle, being condemned to convey a possible first 

 parent for stocking some rich parvenu's newly-made 

 ornamental water with those delicate little bivalves 

 of the genus Sphcsvium, which are the delight as 

 well as the puzzle of young collectors of fresh- water 

 shells. It was Mr. Kew's good fortune to make the 

 capture of this interesting pair of associates. They 

 were taken in Lincolnshire in 1888, and are now 

 preserved in the Manchester Museum. Mention is 

 made of other animals than Dytiscus marginalis, 

 that are the involuntary vehicles for distributing 

 living mollusca, possibly to great distances. The 

 general reader, as well as the man of science, will 

 find much to interest in the instances given, some 

 being very curious. For instance, living snails 

 have been found in the crop of a wood pigeon ; the 

 clinging of eggs and recently-hatched molluscs to 

 the legs and feet of wading and swimming birds, 

 frogs, toads, newts, crayfish. Even quite large 

 fresh-water mussels are sometimes found attached 

 to the toes of ducks ami other birds when they are 

 shot on the wing, at long distances from water. 

 One odd case noted is that of an operculate land 

 snail tightly gripping one of the legs of a humble 

 bee. The curious traps bivalve shells sometimes 

 make are shown in instances where rats have been 



