4 e 9 2 Notices of New Books. 



writes of " the bronze-winged Bipustulata;" Mr. Bo wen preserves 

 this : a naturalist would have quietly given the term a meaning by 

 making it Malachius bipustulatus. Of course a man of Baker's 

 industry and Gilbert- White-like observance of natural phenomena 

 was visited by naturalists passing through the town where he resided ; 

 Mr. Bowen regards him such a law-giver in Science that these were 

 the visits of philosophers coming from the ends of the earth to sit at 

 his feet. The following passage explains the observing, truth-seeking 

 character of the man, even up to the last days of his life, and, at 

 the same time, corrects his biographer's assumption that Mr. Baker's 

 knowledge of Natural History was universal and profound : — " The 

 very last exercise of this talent (drawing) was on the larva of the 

 death's-head moth, an unusually coloured specimen of which was sent 

 him by his friend Mr. Richard Anstice. This was thought a new 

 species, and another drawing made and sent to Mr. Newman, the 

 Zoologist, who found it to be only a variety of the Sphinx Atropos, 

 differing somewhat from the usual specimens in size and colour." — 

 p. 119. Such inquiries frequently reached me, often couched in terms 

 of child-like simplicity; always in a spirit of diffidence and evident 

 distrust of his own knowledge. It was this excess of diffidence, this 

 fear of recording observations that might be unimportant or trifling 

 that prevented William Baker from giving to the world a work 

 equal in interest to White's ' Selbourne' itself. 



When, at fourteen years of age, he was bound apprentice, he says, 

 " I was so well acquainted with the nests and eggs of birds, their 

 songs, and even their call-notes, that I readily recognised those of one 

 species from another. In after life I have never improved, I think, and 

 have scarcely retained the delicacy of my ear for the ever-charming 

 music of birds." — p. 6. 



During his apprenticeship he was a fifer in a volunteer corps, raised 

 to fight the French ; and also an actor : in his own Diary Mr. Baker 

 introduces us to one of the same craft, who afterwards became more 

 famous as a Shaksperian tragedian than any other Britain has pro- 

 duced. For the benefit of Mrs. Kent, an invalid actress then at Bridge- 

 water, it was agreed, with the assistance of a Mrs. Cary and her two 

 sons, and of two or three amateurs, among whom were young Baker 

 and his biographer, Bowen, to perform the ' Merchant of Venice.' 

 "The arrangement and study of our parts brought us altogether on 

 evenings, after the hours of business, and the talent and agreeable 

 person of the younger Cary, about sixteen years of age, were very 

 attractive. I became particularly acquainted with him, and was 



