80 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



blunders which we formerly pointed out (Zool. 1879, p. 494) 

 remain uncorrected, besides many others to which we did not 

 advert. An editor who does not know a Ked Deer from a Fallow 

 Deer, a Shrew from a Water Shrew, or a Curlew from a Thick- 

 Knee ; who supposes that there is only one species of Newt in 

 the British Islands ; and that White's " little yellow bird which 

 makes a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods " is 

 most likely the Grasshopper Warbler (which, as every ornitholo- 

 gist knows, is not yellow, and does not sing in the tops of trees), 

 is hardly the one to be followed as an exponent of White's 

 delightful letters. Bather would we have a reprint without any 

 notes at all (save those of White himself), than have thrust upon 

 us such comments as Mr. Davies has supplied. Some of White's 

 notes, we observe, have been omitted, and we are presented 

 instead with the trivial information that when the editor was a 

 small boy, he used to delight in playing with a large Ammonite 

 belonging to his father (p. 11) ; that he used (also as a small boy) 

 " to catch great numbers of ' bull-heads ' to bait his eel lines 

 with " (p. 41), and that when sitting one evening in Jesmond 

 Dene, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (far enough from Selborne), a Kobin 

 hopped close to him and inspected him closely (p. 106), &c. 

 His inaccuracy extends to his "Introduction," where he tells 

 us gravely that the house in which White lived is now (1890) 

 the property of an eminent naturalist, Professor Thomas Bell, 

 being evidently unaware that the eminent naturalist referred to 

 died more than ten years ago ! 



In the name of all that is accurate we protest against such 

 versions as this of an English classic being foisted on the public 

 at the present day, when our knowledge of the subjects which it 

 embraces is so far in advance of .what it was in White's time. 

 Naturalists of mature age and experience will require no aid 

 from a reviewer to form a proper estimate of the worth of this 

 volume ; but we should be wanting in the candour expected of a 

 critic if we did not warn the rising generation of readers from 

 placing reliance in an edition which, so far as we have cared to 

 examine it, has seemed to us to be wholly unreliable. 



It is but fair to the publisher to state that the book is well 

 printed, and, on the whole, nicely illustrated. This makes it all 

 the more regrettable that the editor's share in its production has 

 not been more competently executed. 



