LITERARY NOTICES. 



7°3 



pared. Some simple and easily followed 

 rules for observation are given. With these, 

 the opera-glass, and his own good sense, 

 the young observer is introduced by the aid 

 of the pleasing descriptions to some seventy 

 species. To these are added a table, which 

 the author call3 " pigeon-holes," for the clas- 

 sification of the birds, synopses of general 

 family characteristics and of arbitrary clas- 

 sifications, and a list of books for reference. 

 " Up and Down the Brooks " is the story 

 told in a similar spirit of the insect life in 

 and upon the water. The specimens serving 

 as types were collected in the brooks of one 

 of the counties of California ; but the author 

 judges rightly that members of the same 

 families may be found by almost any brook 

 East or West, and that her accounts will 

 serve for all. These insects are such as 

 every one sees dancing upon the water, swim- 

 ming in it, or flying above it ; but few have 

 any real acquaintance with their nature, 

 mode of growth, habits of life, or affilia- 

 tions. To those who wish to know about 

 them, this little series of sketches will be 

 convenient and instructive as well as enter- 

 taining. 



Days out of Doors. By Charles C. Ab- 

 bott. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 

 Pp. 323. Price, $1.50. 



A book about Nature by Dr. Abbott by 



this time needs no special introduction to 



the readers of the " Monthly." They have 



all had a taste of the author's quality as an 



observer and describer of outdoor life, and 



know that he is capable of transmitting to 



any others who will listen to him or read 



him the variety and enjoyment that he finds 



there. As the 



,l ragged cliff 

 Has thousand faces in a thousand hours," 



Dr. Abbott finds the same to be " true of the 

 tamest pasture, where not even the clover 

 and buttercups of one side are the twins of 

 the buttercups and clover of the other " ; 

 and where through the succeeding changes 

 of the year objects of interest "never re- 

 peat themselves, or else I am daily a new 

 creature. Nor sight nor sound but has the 

 freshness of novelty, and one rambler, at 

 least, in his maturer years is still a boy at 

 heart." These changes by the month and 

 season enter into the plan of the present 



book, which presents a kind of naturalist's 

 calendar or diary of the months. The birds 

 figure as the principal characters, though 

 other objects of life are not unregarded, and 

 the story of their coming and going, or 

 sometimes staying, their working, sporting, 

 cooing, nest-breeding, and initiation into the 

 experiences of life, is recorded consecutively 

 from January through the winter, spring, 

 summer, and autumn months, till December 

 closes the cycle and ends at the time when 

 a new series is to begin. Other people find 

 novelties and things of ever refreshing in- 

 terest abroad. Dr. Abbott does not deny 

 them the pleasure, for he can do and has 

 done the same; but he can find, too, all 

 that is needed to make life worth living on 

 the banks of his unpretending creek and 

 modest river to which it is ever his pleasure 

 to return. Therefore he holds "that one 

 need not mope because he has to stay at 

 home. Trees grow here as suggestively as 

 in California, and the water of our river is 

 very wet. Remember, too, if trees are not 

 tall enough to suit your whim, to lie down 

 beneath the branches of every one of them, 

 and, as you look up, the topmost twig pierces 

 the sky. There is not an oak but will be- 

 come a gigantic Sequoia in this way. One 

 need learn no magic to bring the antipodes 

 home to him." This is, perhaps, the prin- 

 cipal lesson taught in the book, and it is 

 made extremely palatable by the spice of 

 familiar illustration, incident, adventure, per- 

 sonal delineations, old lore of history and 

 tradition, and pictures of the brook and 

 fields and their incessantly changing life. 



Physical Realism. By Thomas Case, M. A. 

 London and New York : Longmans, 

 Green & Co. One vol. 8vo. Pp. 38*7. 

 Price, $5. 



This is an able and scholarly work, well 

 worthy the attention of those familiar with 

 the course of philosophical thought and fond 

 of philosophical discussion. The argument 

 of the author is that we sensibly perceive an 

 internal but physical world — physical objects 

 of sense in the internal nervous system — 

 from which we infer an external and physi- 

 cal world. This is " physical realism." It 

 is opposed to intuitive or natural realism, 

 which declares that we directly perceive an 

 external physical world ; and to cosmothetic 

 idealism, which concludes that we are sen- 



