4054 Notices of New Books. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



C A Naturalises Rambles on the Devonshire Coast-'' By Philip 

 Henry Gosse. London : John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row. 

 1853. Price 21s. 



Scarcely have we pronounced a most favourable opinion of Mr. 

 Gosse's ' Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica,' than we are called upon to 

 review another book from the same pen, equally beautiful, equally 

 amusing, and equally instructive. Mr. Gosse produces the beautiful, 

 the amusing, and the instructive, with a rapidity we have seldom seen 

 equalled, and never surpassed. This book is a fit companion to the 

 ' Sojourn ;' like that it is a series of pictures which it must delight the 

 lover of Nature to look upon : in the former we were introduced to 

 the inhabitants of earth, in this we are made familiar with the deni- 

 zens of ocean ; we are bid to look upon the wonders of the deep; the 

 plant-animals of the sea are revealed to us in all their loveliness, are 

 presented to us in their most attractive forms ; and not these only, 

 but also mollusks and crustaceans, whose living and moving charac- 

 ters are here for the first time laid down. 



The desultory manner in which Mr. Gosse has arranged his pen- 

 pictures is, we think, one great charm of the book : we are led onwards 

 without any risk of being tired by scientific technicalities. Here is a 

 picture of Anthea : — 



" In a large vase of sea-water Anthea' s actions are as peculiar as its 

 appearance. It is fond of climbing up the sides of the glass, a feat 

 which it accomplishes with a considerable measure of (comparative) 

 activity. It glides up by the broad fleshy base, pretty much in the 

 same manner as a Gasteropod does by its expanded foot ; and yet the 

 process is not exactly the same. The power which Anthea has of 

 inflating portions of its body, swelling them out in large tumid lobes 

 separated by deep sulci from the rest of the circumference, assists it 

 in crawling. We will suppose the Anthea resting on the bottom of 

 the vessel, when it feels a desire to mount the sides of the glass. 

 Pushing out a great inflated lobe towards that side the sole of which 

 is free from the surface, it takes hold of the glass with the edge of the 

 lobe, and when the contact is firm, relaxing its former hold, it slowly 

 drags forward the body, until the lobe is again lost in the general cir- 

 cumference, or even till the body projects in two smaller lobes one on 

 each side of the principal one. The base being now made firmly to 

 adhere, again the lobe is freed, and again protruded, and the same 



